A Wicked weekend of ups and downs...

Gosh, it's Monday (again) and it seems like I didn't have a weekend much, although I did have an (enforced) 3 day weekend.

It was another week at the contract (which is still a little pedestrian, and not really giving me anything to have a lovely meal out of). It's money - and I will not complain about that :) However, what we do have is a contract which is giving me 1-2 things to do every hour. I mean we all like a little goofing off, tmie to have a look at Facebook, or LJ, and so forth... but not to spend the day on them and nothing else (note: FB is blocked at this workplace). Anyway, time at work was had, along with notice that The Fortress' rent is going up (an official notice which I am challenging as the last 10% rise was last year, and certain tasks on the house have not been done in that year, and this is now another rent rise) not to mention a House Inspection next week on the 14th. It happens.

Of course there were things to attend last week - the 2008 Helpmann Awards, being a night of champagne and theatre-types with performances by the Casts of The Rocky Horror Show (which news reports keep annoyingly calling The Rocky Horror <i>Picture</i> Show), Billy Elliot, Wicked!, The Phantom Of The Opera, Guys & Dolls, and numbers of other vignettes from theatre around Australia. Billy Elliot took out 7 Awards, which means I need to see it within the next 14 weeks, as it's heading off to Melbourne then. Anyone interested in seeing it before it finishes? The tickets are now discounted by more than 50%.

The rest of the week was work (well, as much as it happens to be) followed by a short day on Thursday. Leaving work early to get to the airport, check in, and fly down to Melbourne with <lj user="arby_doll">. Of course coming from the office meant that my Leatherman tool was still onmy belt... < sigh >. $40 later (to ship it in the hold) and we were off. Arrived down at Avalon Airport (though, Air<i>field</i> may be more apt methinks) 90 mins later, and then had a coach trip into Melbourne itself - which was surprisingly pleasant. I do like Melbourne - and it was unfortunate that this was a quick one day trip only. Booked into the Windsor, with a room upgrade to the same class of room as I was in last time, a 2 room suite - which means that <lj user="master_flea"> had his own room to snooze in. Caught up with Jon, Chivas later, along with getting spruced up for the the-ay-ter. Dinner at Rossi's (which was as good as the last few times I've been there, although the bill hurt, as they didn't juggle the substitutes well - just tacked them on - I'm writing to them about this) and then a brisk walk around to The Regent to see "Wicked!".

<lj-cut text="Wicked!">I'm not sure about reviewing this musical, as I had some expectations, and happily (pretty much) all of them were met. Based on the book by Gregory Maguire, this Musical-Theatre  phenomenon has been attributed by many to have led the recent Broadway revival in the USA. In fact, it really is stunning to watch. The sets are simplistic, yet you can swear that they are full of detail. I take this to be a reflection of the rich characterisations of the cast, coupled with a few choice minimalist pieces to show the scene change. If anything the lighting for this musical deserves an award in itself. Twice I said "Wow!" at the lighting/scene changes, which presented something unexpected - and as I have said before, I like to be surprised in a film/production. The story is a great take on life in OZ (before the arrival of Dorothy) and the songs were great and damned well performed - especially "Defy Gravity" (one of the signature tunes of the show). I can't say much about the plot as there are things which (to those not familiar with the book/show) are spoilers, but suffice to say that there is an intersection with "The Wizard Of Oz" and some things are explained in a very surprising, yet excellently logical way. It's a show which is a true visual feast, the costumes are lavish (with a alleged budget of over $10 Million for them alone), and overall the show was wonderful. If I needed to criticise anything, it would be the music/orchestra but on reflection it was probably the sound mixing. The balance was wrong, and this did (on reflection) splash over to the performers at times with mikes not on and/or not balanced with the other performers. It wasn't BAD, but needs work - which I am sure will be polished as this was only the opening fortnight. Of course the star turn of the night was Amanda Harrison as Elphaba who simply blew me away with "Defying Gravity" (and I thought it was good at The Helpmann Awards, live it was 10,000 volts to the spine). Overall, the show was stunning and I can't recommend it enough to all, especially (right now) to those in Melbourne. I'm now going through the book - which is somewhat harder to march through, but at times you get that with an original novel which has been simplified for a film/stage-production.</lj-cut>

The next morning, check-out and back to Avalon Airport to fly back to Sydney to get back to the office. Well, that was the plan. Avalon, you see, is an airfield where QANTAS does an amount of it's domestic heavy maintenance on most of it's fleet (as opposed to what appears to be the cheap, slip-shod efforts of overseas-based maintenance, recently [prove me wrong, please]). Avalon is also on a coastal plain. This means wind-storms and of course we caught one. Getting back to the office was a pipe-dream as soon as the storm hit, as all flights into Avalon were diverted to Tullamarine and after 2 hours wait, we were also shuttled to Tullamarine, where we waited for another hour and then took off for Sydney. A 1pm departure became a 4pm departure, which meant a 6pm-ish arrival back in Sydney. This left precious little time to get home, get changed and head off to The Hordern to see Devo, but that was the plan and we managed to stick to it with minimal stress and a lot of transport luck.

<lj-cut text="Devo">We got to Fox Studios at about 7:30pm, briefly catching up with <lj user="nerdi">, <lj user="domesticmouse"> and <lj user="badpauly"> before heading into The Hordern to catch Reguritator. Barbs hadn't seen them live before (I had, at Big Day Out) and so I knew what to expect. Even with a replacement drummer on the night, who was more than fitting into the bands sound, they were good, although the audience seemed a little quiet. To be honest, I liked the 4 songs I caught, but for some reason they didn't really catch me. After almost every song, the band kept gushing about how they were there to support "the best [hottest] band in the world!" and whilst that was the prime rerason I was there, it got old after the 3rd time they said it. Still, I got to the front, and managed to catch some shots of the band with the non-professional camera before the person behind me (also with a non-professional camera) got pinged by Security for having a 'professional camera'. I think we need to have a real guideline as to what a 'professional' camera is. I tend to think that any camerra with a lens over 52mm should be deemed professional, but many non-professional cameras can take much better shots than an SLR these days. (Have a look at PC User this month for examples). They really need to have a look at what 'professional' is deemed to be (although on the flip-side I do understand that they need something to work from and 'a removalble lens' is probably as good a place to start as any). Anyway, The Gurge were good - but I think they were better at BDO. So, after 4 songs we wandered out to look at the Merch. The Energy Domes [flowerpot hats] (only a hundred apparently) went instantly, and there were no programmes (Tour Books), no CDs or DVDs for Devo (though Regurgitator had a DVD). I was surprised (pleasantly) to see Devo Australian Tour posters available and I had a chat with the Playbill Manager there who initially scoffed at the idea of having DVDs and CDs, but after a few minutes (and comparing it to other shows they managed merchandise for, like 'War Of The Worlds' and 'Wicked!', and noting that - especially on consignment - even with a very small margin, they would make a more-than-passable profit) he jotted down some details and said he'd look at that for future gigs - which (IMO) is a positive step (although if anything does come of it I will be [pleasantly] surprised).

We wandered to the Bar and ran into Voodoo, Mark Humphries, and ran into David Callan (and his wife) whom I hadn't seen (well hadn't spoken to) in about 6 years. The nice thing was that not only did he stop to say "Hi!" but both he and his wife spent a good 20 minutes just hanging and chatting with us. It was very very cool to catch up with him and I hope I get to make that a more regular thing, as both David (and his brother Peter) have always been great people and always took time to just chat. (Oh yes - I should note - David plays the carrot in those V8 adverts, and is also in a number of other ads, as well as being a brilliant improv actor, his brother Peter has also been in so many ads it's not funny, and was one of my first friends at Theatresports all those years ago).

Going back into the hall, it was time for the lights to go down, people streamed in and the old 'Public Service Education Film' started. The crown screamed and then went quiet, in a kind of reverent hush. After the film has finished, with a faint D-E-V-O getting brighter on the screen, shadowy forms came onto the stage. Again the crowd roared and the lights came up on a group of men, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, Gerald and Bob Casale, and Neil Taylor standing in yellow overalls, with red energy-domes on their heads. For the first time in over 20 years, DEVIO had returned to Sydney. As I recall, the setlist, included: "Going Under", "Peek-a-Boo!", "Girl U Want", "Whip It", "Secret Agent Man", "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "Uncontrollable Urge", "Mongoloid", "Blockhead", "Jocko Homo", "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA", "Gates of Steel", "We Are Devo", "Freedom of Choice", "Gut Feeling", and after a short break, their encore of "Beautiful World" (with a surprise appearance of, and sung by, Booji Boy). This was more than a stroll down memory lane, it was a fully-fleged pogo (the dance, not the stick). From the first notes, the boys - yes they will always be 'the boys', hit all the right marks for the night. They interracted with the audience, they performed, and they knew their audience. The really nice thing about the show was that this was Devo, 25 years on, older (and a little bigger in some cases) but unapologetically so. This was a show which should not have been missed by any Devo fan. It was tight, and fed us all the right ingredients. They took me back to the alternative (non-corporate harder and edgier) 80's, they bounced around the stage, they led cheers, they walked into the front of the audience as we all answered the De-Volution Mass Mantra 'Are We Not Men?' "We Are Devo!", they tore each others overalls off to change costumes halfway through, they frisbee'd Energy Domes over the crowd, and threw happy-face bouncy balls to the audience (I got one of the bouncy balls at least), and gave us what we wanted - a glorious night of De-Volution. </lj-cut>

Straight after the show, Barbs and I headed into Bar Ace for a quick drink with <lj user="kanika"> and for me to say a brief farewell to the old place. I believe that there's a photo floating around of me being booted by Jules (in the face) - yes it was posed but looks painful nonetheless. I was hoping to see a few more people there, but there were none others that I knew there, really. So, it was off home after a somewhat early Friday night as I had to be in class the next morning.

(Can you believe that this only goes up to Saturday so far?)

<lj-cut text="First Aid Course and bad lunch">An 8:30am start in Surry Hills, to re-do my First Aid Certificate (Security work and all that y'know), was an interesting exercise in Conflict Resolution (one of the guards was not told to read the envelope his workbook was in, so he didn't - it said 'complete this workbook before attending the course' - so he arc'd up at the instructor, which was just plain stupid) and having the Instructor ask for clarification and anecdotal stories as I knew more than she did in some areas (Mardi Gras Medical experience etc...). I found out at the end of the day that she actually thought I was a Doctor. No I did not say that at all - I actually told the others in the cl;ass when they asked how I knew so much about Medical matters, that I was just a Guard with over 15 years experience in Mardi Gras/Dance Parties and the medical side of those same parties as well. Still, it was interesting to have the instructor try to defer to me, when I kept refusing to be put into that role ;) It was a little weird, but made the refresher course somewhat of a cakewalk. After the course was the beginning of when the day went more than a little pear-shaped (and I won't go into explicit details). Suffice to say that lunch was something that I should not have had from that Surry Hills Kebab place, I assume Ash doesn't eat there, his Salon being just around the corner. By 4pm I was a little rumbling, by 5pm it was a little erksome - and by 7pm it was... er... very gastric in nature (I know, I know... TMI). So, that's all the night ended up being - I was very much NOT impressed. So, no I didn't get to <lj user="sebthecat"> & <lj user="goldfishgeorge">'s post nuptials at The Duke (sorry guys, but there was no way I could get there given the physical circumstances, and I REALLY wanted to be there, but I hope that you had the BEST night), no I didn't get to Ascension either, I just kept in the house and took some of the requisite medication which kind of settled things down by about 2-3am-ish I think). </lj-cut>

That also meant that (these things DO exhaust one) I slept pretty much immediately until Midday Sunday. When I woke up, and headed up the street to get the rest of the requisite medications which then settled things down enough to have a bite to eat, and enable me to do some needed shopping. Then Sunday night (after Barbs headed off home) was just taking more meds (as required) and catching up on Time Team and performign a little IT consultation on the side. Yes, I think that brings me up to today - where, after a night of sleeping with all 4 kittehs, I am back into the office - with a promise of actually getting out of the office and having 3 people scheduled to install 11pcs in Parramatta, tomorrow morning at 8am mind you, which they believe will take all day. Ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght. 3 people, plugging in 11 PCs, and this taking all day? I don't think so. I'm also being actively head-hunted by Telstra/Qantas right now, so we will see what happens there - after all it takes them about 2 months to do paperwork, so it may be something to move to after this 3 months finishes.

Anyway, I think that's my lot for now. Back to doing the odd bit of support.
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