Articles » Leader Cheetah + The Middle East + megastick fanfare + SPOD + Cuthbert and the Night Walkers @ Hopetoun Hotel/World Bar

Leader Cheetah + The Middle East + megastick fanfare + SPOD + Cuthbert and the Night Walkers @ Hopetoun Hotel/World Bar
20/02/2009

Friday night (umm... about 2 weeks ago now) was hyped up (by us) as pretty much the greatest night of Sydney music EVER.

So... did it live up to that stupidly large claim?

Well, to be honest.. my memory of the night is a little bit patchy. Sure, all those patches are fucking awesome (ghosts, skulls on fire, naked chicks wrapped around pot leaves etc) and when sewn together create the most fucking incredible quilt EVER... BUT I am a little bit vague on the actual 'details'.

So, if you were looking for a detailed review with setlists, what the mood was like and how many improv tempo changes each band made then you came to wrong place. If you came here to see me explain random events from the night with the assistance of the wonderful Google Fight then you have arrived at Da Pleasuredome. So sit down and drink some cold lemonade and allow me graph dis shit out for yer.

Meta?

The evening started at a pub in the quant town of Eskineville where beer was consumed, raffle tickets were bought and Dragon pumped out of the stereo. DRAGON!

I left pub around the time the TEN meat raffles were starting to get dished out.

I arrived at my first stop (the Hopetoun Hotel) to see megastick fanfare, who I had been trying to catch for some time BUT with minor setbacks I haven't had the chance. They were worth the wait. Mindblowingly good.

Next up was Townsville's finest - The Middle East.

I just admit I wasn't too familiar with their material and I felt a little bit like the emotive power of their music was somewhat lost over the general Friday evening chitter chatter of the clientele. However, they definitely had a strong following with loud cheers following every song they performed. In fact I was a little bit surprised, but the majority of the sold out crowd seemed to be there to see them.

With a decent portion of the crowd leaving after The Middle East finished up I was able to get into a primo spot for Leader Cheetah's performance. They were absolutely brilliant. They played Bloodlines early on, Alibi sounded fucking incredible and they hardly put a foot wrong throughout their 40 minute set. Completely exceeding my crazy high expectations. Brilliant stuff.

Unfortunately, my overall enjoyment of their performance was somewhat maimed by a couple of talkative douches in front talking continuously. I really had to hold myself back from biffing them. Setting them straight. Showing them what time it was, etc. But I am a bit of coward, so I instead decided to save up my anger to simply 'scorch' them on the international-web. That'll show 'em!

Although, in hindsight...

Upon the commencement of Leader Cheetah's performance I was prepared to call it a night. Unfortunately, Mz Peer Pressure had other ideas and I was 'somehow' convinced that it was a good idea to head into Da Land Of Sin (Kings Cross) to see SPOD perform at World Bar.

When I got there I was greeted by Capt SPOD waving around bottles of champagne like it was some sort of flamboyant early 90s rap video clip (pre-GFC).

Due to the excessive amount of free champagne floating around I unfortunately missed Cuthbert and the Night Walkers' performance.

My apologies to both Cuthbert and his evening waltzers. I will make it up to you all. Even if takes me a lifetime.

The whole night was running incredibly late so Mr SPOD wasn't going to get on stage until around 2am (estimate?). I am an old man. My days of hanging out until past 9.45pm and/or not falling asleep on the couch watching downloaded re-runs of NYPD (Jimmy fucking Smits!!!) are OVER.

But then again:

I was full of juice (and gin). Where did these free drink tokens appear from?
SPOD is special
I was kinda drunk

So, I carefully weighed up the pros and cons. Ha! Pros! Kings Cross! Hilarity! Ensured!

And I am glad I stayed.

SPOD's performance was like a freshly ironed pair of amazing pants. Words can't really describe the mayhem/fun of his set. Luckily, thanks to super-duper photography lady Amelia Schmidt I don't need to even try.