ahousenearyou Concert Review

The Cruel Sea - Wednesday 3/10/2001 at Blackjacks.

A great Australian band, a packed house of drunken fans, a casino and the boys from ahousenearyou. Sheesh - this night is starting pretty damn well.

On Wednesday night Matty and i went to see The Cruel Sea at Blackjacks in the Wrest Point casino. Our night started off pretty quietly, we had a few quiet ales at home and we were pretty stuffed, we had these tickets and i happen to be a pretty big fan of the band. Matty was not particularly pumped for the gig. We left a little late from home - had to finish the carton - and made it to the Caz at about a quarter to nine or so. The gig started at 8.30.

We had to walk through the tables to get to the venue, so we waded through all manner of immigrants, boat people and refugees to get to Blackjacks, all winning and losing the hard earned money paid by the Australian government through good Australian taxpayers wallets. I fantasized about jumping up on the tables, pulling a magic poolcue from my ear and beating them all up in a Jackie Chan style - mass group - ass-whoopin'. Instead we kept walking through to the venue.

The old ladies on the door were so nice, they told us how much the gig was to enter and we politely smiled and told her that we would not be paying this evening. We were on the guest list. I mean we were wearing ahousenearyou.com t-shirts for god's sake, you would have thought that they would know that they should just let us in - a little BJ wouldn't have gone astray either.

Upon entering the smoke filled, sweaty venue i whacked a smile on my face, Tex was up there cranking away in his true style, woo-ing the ladies and stomping around like he owned the place. The Cruel Sea sea were totally rocking out. Although there was something slightly strange about this gig, it must have been the venue. The times that i have seen this band, they have been at City Hall playing to a packed crowd in something that resembled more of a big band gig than a small time casino gig. Still, they played exceptionally well and seemed to be having a good time. These people certainly were...

Matty turned to me and commented that this guy (featured on the left) looked like he was the quiet type that beat his wife up a lot. He looked so harmless but had a desperate determination in his eyes. He was funny though, i must say that this shot does not show the true fiendish nature that he subtly displayed whilst dancing like a rooster that had just been fucked up the ass by Mr. T.

It wasn't long before Matty commented on how damn good The Cruel Sea were live. I knew well what these guys were capable of and they did not disappoint.

We caught a few songs with lyrics, i reckon about 3 or 4 - then Tex cruised off stage with the band before they returned without him to play a couple of funkin instrumentals.

Everyone was dancin' away - especially the aforementioned rooster and his beautiful wife with the fat ass until Tex rejoined the band and they played an extended version of Black Stick. I say extended, it went for a very long time, we didn't mind though it was very entertaining. This couple of mad, drunken, bogan chicks jumped up on stage and started dancing a drunken, bogan dance - it was quite mad.

Now this was fine for a little while, until . . . One of the chicks, the more charismatic of the two, thought she might start having a bit of a play of her air guitar. Bad move sweatheart. Our hero - Tex, stopped whatever he was doing, and told her to get off the stage.

"NO AIR GUITAR. Get off, you're a woman, you don't play air guitar - you dance, c'mon, you got the stuff"

I think were his words.

He then proceeded to grab other chicks up from the audience down the front of the stage and invite them up to show this dirty bogans how it is done.

I don;t think there were many girls left by the time he was done pulling them from the crowd. It was very entertaining from our perspective. We got to watch shitloads of drunken chicks trying to be the sexiest thing in the world and impress the crowd that sat in front of them from alongside The Cruel Sea during their finale tune.

I don't know how long this song dragged out for, but it was a damn long time. We got lots of photos, and we didn't mind a bit.

Matty and i left feeling quite thoroughly happy about the band and the gig. My only regret was that we didn't get there earlier. We trapesed back through the Vietnamese shanty town that they call 'the tables' and cruised home.

Check out all of the photos that we got from the gig here . . .

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Rating out of 7 7's.