October 10, 2017
I am in my room, buzzing.
I am made so happy from the night I have had tonight.
Sydney, you are etched on my heart.
I should start at the beginning.
I woke too early again.
In the gloom of the morning I wandered into FaceBook and had a spar that caused my adrenaline to spike.
I don’t feel able too often to respond to compliments.
It feels vain glorious, like I am enticing those who have not yet told me I am wonderful, to step up.
Slap my legs, though, and I’m in there.
I shall work on that immediately.
Why reward tedious malcontents who seek to plump their own slack bodies with the good fat drawn from yours.
Even if I can take their legs off in the process.
I take no pleasure humiliating the needy.
I stayed quiet in my room.
I washed. I packed. I ironed. I ate left over salad from last night’s take out. A Diet Coke from the mini bar.
I met G in the lobby at 3:50pm and we both delivered loads of washing to the laundrette en route to the venue, although my jeans probably could have walked themselves there.
I also dropped my knife and fork into the Italian. (see yesterday’s entry).
They were not surprised to see me.
On the drive to The Enmore Theatre, I admire the architecture.
I love the fussy, ornate facades of the little houses that run the length of the roads. Detached or in pairs. Houses that appear hunkered down as opposed to built up, but proudly entrenched in their places
Filigreed balconies that seem friendly and fanciful, grace the upper stories.
Imposing, forbidding arches on what might be sturdy Victorian terraces, awning windows that present as both dominant and darkly hidden.
I imagine it has something to do with minimising the heat in summer.
As a child, I would have liked to make camp in those inner spaces.
The shadows I am sure would be wonderful.
I wonder how the rooms look inside.
As with all dwellings, I want to see how they were appointed when first built.
Before new owners deemed that they might be improved by alteration.
Who thought to make them which ever way and to what purpose.
What furniture was the perfect fit
I like the venue immediately .
It is a funky theatre affair which offers both standing and seated arrangements.
My favourite kind.
I believe the theatre is 90 years old.
I will be close to the audience.
I like that.
Nuance can be registered and it feels like we are a collective.
Each contributing to the other’s experience.
I don’t like to be staring out from a distance.
I don’t like being small.
I like us to be near to one another.
I like to feel a connection.
I want to feel like we feed the same beast.
Beyond the cold of backstage, and the irksome flies in my dressing room that G spent most of the early evening at war with, the backstage area is perfect for my good mood.
Again we were fed very well as we have been throughout most of our Australian adventure.
Steak, today.
I asked them to take much of mine away before I contaminated it with used cutlery.
It might have been a pound of meat and less than half was more than plenty. It was lovely though
.
More Audible book through the speaker of my phone.
More make up.
At 7:15 I met Quinn and his friend Laura.
Quinn was a competition winner for a meet and greet.
He had to devise a well chosen set list.
In truth I had asked Steve and G to chose our one-in-the-run winner.
I don’t listen to music, let alone myself once it is out there, so I am not the best judge.
They are truly lovely and fun and raise my mood further still.
We do sambucca shots together and have as long a lark as time allowed
I don’t do those paid-for package meet and greets.
I’m too old school for that.
They make me queasy seeing a production line and feigned benefaction.
Maybe if I was brassic I’d jig thus, but while I can make a living being productive, I prefer hellos to be common and garden.
Unless I’ve got a cobb on, or am tired and on a talk-ban, in which case I am glad to dodge them altogether.
Tonight is the only time we have one arranged.
When they leave, the boys come in and we do our pre-show routine.
There was something comical about how in-between every scale we compared notes on Blade Runner, each waiting for the next exercise to end to add our contribution in matter of fact voices.
The internet said this morning that Blade Runner’s opening box office weekend in the States was disappointing.
I don’t know why.
I don’t remember the original and didn’t relate to the ‘everything not being explained’ criticism.
I don’t mind spaces.
Thinking is the best bit.
Wondering is what keeps a film with you.
I will go to see it again when I can.
The roar we came on to was humungous and long and loud. So fantastically fierce. So intense I couldn’t hear the count-in click in my ear monitor.
It may have been that,
or the fact that I was not plugged in correctly, but eitherway, I couldn’t hear my cue and no singing was happening when it certainly should have been.
This entirely messed up my entrance and what would have been moody and impactful was instead me wittering cheerfully on and concluding with a
Fuck It! I’m coming on again.
And I did.
I went off and then came back again, and we all made as though it was happening for the first time, albeit that I was laughing and spouting shit and they were laughing and not minding at all.
Up close this audience is a beautiful warm and rugged sea. The type you can walk into without catching your breath or cupping your breasts for the impending shock of cold.
The love and the energy and the communion we have leaves no one apart from the whole.
From the outset I am happy and feeling like I am amongst my own.
There were surprises that delighted me too.
Yes, hits were very welcome, but some of the new material was met with even greater approval than a couple of safe bets.
I am in love with this place and the people and my pleasure and gratitude is a living thing.
I wanted to relive it all in my dressing room with my team and raise many a glass to what for me has been a true highlight, but I have Brisbane the next night and then New Zealand to reintroduce myself to, so I am back into silence mode.
I leave the stage straight into the car and am driven to my hotel.
I sit in my room smiling wide.
Post script.
My Floyd shirt yesterday came back to me like a faithful cur.
I fed it to a service wash.
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