"I recall a bigger brighter world, a world of books and silent times in thought
And then the railroad, the railroad takes him home
Through fields of cattle, through fields of cane"
Like many British thirtysomethings, I spent teenage evenings dreaming of the day I'd visit Australia. But for me it wasn't the shiny leafy utopia of Neighbours or the sun-blazed beach town of Home And Away that attracted me, although of course I watched them both; pretty much everyone did, even my soap opera hating parents. It was something wilder and less specific; the very different pictures painted by a generation of astonishing wordsmiths. In those three lines above (from "Cattle And Cane", many years later selected by the Australasian Performing Right Association as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time, although a great many music fans would put it at least in the top five), The Go-Betweens' Grant McLennan made you feel the wide open spaces of his country. I'm not the sort of person who sheds tears at the death of people I never actually met, but in 2006 McLennan was my exception; his and co-songwriter Robert Forster's words told me more about this far-off land than a million school geography lessons about sheep farming. As did Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil - at the time of writing just about hanging on (more on which later) as Government Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts - "out where the river broke, the blood wood and the desert oak, holden wrecks and boiling diesels steam in forty five degrees". I couldn't actually imagine what forty-five degrees felt like. My favourite Australian band of the era The Triffids were less specific in their lyrics, but their 1987 album "In The Pines" - famously recorded at a shearing station deep in the great expanse between their native Perth and the rest of the country - somehow carried the sound of its environment with it.
The reason for this fascination can be traced, like most of my life if I am being honest, to the influence of one man. Who wasn't Australian, but Greek-Mancunian. It's customary for music fans of mine and other generations to talk of John Peel as having changed lives and opened up new worlds, and sure, I listened to Peel back then too, but most of the music I have loved for the past two decades and more stemmed from Sunday nights in the mid to late 80s and the crackling of Piccadilly 103 through my little bedside mono radio-cassette, finger hovering close to the Record button. It was here that I first heard The Fall, The Buzzcocks, The Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets and hosts of lesser known local bands. It was there that I first heard The Chameleons, the band which (as described in previous blog "Decade") more than any other influenced and continue to influence my life. And then there was the Australian thing. As I wrote, in a review of the brilliant 2003 compilation "Tales From The Australian Underground" ( http://www.music-dash.co.uk/releases/archiverelease.asp?item=512 ): "I’ve been accused more times than I can remember of only listening to Manchester bands. I blame the weekly influence of Tony Michaelides’ radio show in my musically formative years. But the other abiding legacy I retain from those teenage Sunday nights with my finger on the Record button is a love for the music of a land a very long way from here. There’s a whole generation of Mancunians, and I meet them every now and then, who still rate the Moffs “Another Day In The Sun” as one of the finest records ever made, for whom the Triffids and the Go-Betweens were as much a part of growing up as New Order and the Chameleons. For some reason the Australian indie scene always seemed a lot closer in spirit and sound to what was going on in Manchester than even the music from other parts of the UK did. The rapid turnover in the Australia & New Zealand rack in Vinyl Exchange would seem to confirm this – that there are an unusually high number of people in this town with an interest in music made the other side of the world 15 to 20 years ago." It's not there any more - I guess it was all bought up by people like me who couldn't afford at fifteen to buy all the records they liked the sound of.
And it's music that's finally taken me to this country. My good friend Ernst, a fellow Chameleons acolyte and awaydayer, got there first: his own longterm favourite band The Church originated from there, and whilst band members are dispersed across the globe these days it's their homeland tours which are the jewel in the crown for their hardcore fans. Ernst is so hardcore he's been three times. As he lives in Oslo, he will pretty much always hold the undisputed longhaul awayday record - there's not much further you could go and see a band without actually leaving the planet. Me? Well, in late 2009 British Sea Power announced that they'd be doing their first tour of Australia in early 2010. I'd always said I'd go when they did, and here I am.
Let's get one thing straight; this isn't some desperate need to see a band everywhere they play. Some of the hardcore went to watch them in China in autumn 2009; I never considered joining them because China is just not a place I have ever had any desire to visit. In fact I've actively avoided it several times in the day job: an atrocious human rights record gives me an official excuse, although a workmate's tale of biting into a small pastry that turned out to have a whole duck's foot in it (and similar food-related concerns: I don't eat dead stuff, and they don't seem to eat much that isn't) is at least as important on a personal level. I have seen the band in Prague, Poland, Los Angeles and most recently Jersey because these are places I always wanted to see, and tour dates provided an excuse. Awaydaying is a way of seeing the world, but with musical entertainment thrown in. Without the bands I love I would probably never have taken the stunning train journey from New York up to Boston; ventured outside touristy Krakow to the industrial Katowice and out into the Polish countryside; conveniently arrived in Niagara Falls on what the B&B proprietress told us was the best day of the year; walked around in the deep sub-zero ice of a sparkling Oslo winter night (I love Ernst, but without a shared interest in a Doves gig I'm not sure I'd have picked late November as a sensible time to visit); caught a lunar eclipse over the Hudson River; ridden a slow and somewhat rickety bus cross country from Galway to Limerick, or (the night before 2009's Primavera Festival) celebrated into the night with Barcelona fans as their team decimated Manchester United, having first explained of course that our city has two football teams. Tony Michaelides, The Go-Betweens and The Triffids made me want to go to Australia one day; British Sea Power simply defined which day that would be.
I offered to cover the gigs bit of the trip for Incendiary, as the band's manager Dave has been kind enough to put us on the guest list and I always believe in giving something back, however small; also Incendiary wanted the exclusive UK perspective on the band's first Australian tour. Sorted - thanks Dave. So a fair bit of the gig and festival coverage here's already appeared online there - here you'll find it in a more personal context.
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It's midday on Sunday 14th February; morning back home and late afternoon where we're going, but as the bright golden sands of the Arabian desert give way to the hazy blue ocean which will be our window view until it gets too dark to see, it isn't really any time at all. We left Manchester Saturday evening and a meal, film (The Damned United, which is pretty good if you can manage to convince yourself that Timothy Spall - playing Timothy Spall as usual - is Peter Taylor) and quick nap later it was morning in Dubai. Amidst the chaos of the upmarket shopping mall that is its transfer zone we rendezvoused with Boom and headed for the calm of an equally high-class bar; G&T for us, a White Russian for him, the unknown quantity that is the local currency shielding us from the possibly astronomical cost, at least until the next credit card bill. You can even have a cigarette because here they've got the sort of stunning air conditioning whereby the smoke is whisked off and imperceptible just metres away. You have to be a paying customer at the bar to do so, though - clever marketing given that many passing through are mid-way between two long flights. But then this entire country was built on money - they don't miss a trick.
I have already decided Emirates is the Best Airline Ever. The film was our choice from over a hundred; the music selection is eclectic (I listen to a Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer duet of Redemption Song and reckon if there is any sort of afterlife they're still hanging out, plus half a Talking Heads album because I can); the Economy seats are the best I've ever sat in and even the meal was actually quite nice. Pretty much any other airline I've experienced I'd be dreading the second, longer, stint. As it is, well, ten hours on a plane is never fun, is it? I play Tetris for an hour, listen to The Flaming Lips' 2009 album "Embryonic" (c/o the inflight entertainment) and read Michael Moynihan's rather patchily written if well-researched and fascinating "Lords Of Chaos: The Bloody Rise Of The Satanic Metal Underground" (c/o there not being much in HMV's books section last week). The book features a burning church on the cover and the chillingly matter-of-fact transcription of one Varg (Burzum) Vikernes' confession regarding the fatal head-stabbing of an ex-collaborator. The Flaming Lips album meanwhile is surprisingly good, as many critics said at the time - well, actually, most of them said it was "experimental", "insane" or somewhat lacking in the borderline showtunes with which Coyne et al have been annoying festivals for the past few summers. Good. I'm not sure, for instance, how the "children's entertainer with Santas and Teletubbies" act would work with the blistering two-minute feedback assault that is "Aquarius Sabotage", but it goes pretty well with tales of extremely hairy Norwegians slaughtering each other for no reason at all. That said, by the time it finally reaches track 18 I don't think I ever want to hear it again. Can't be doing with contrivedness in bands.
That's why I love watching British Sea Power: wild imagination without contrivedness. Or is it "contrivance"? I can't remember; I'm writing this on the BlackBerry at what I think is 1am Perth time, which is 5pm back home, which is 31 hours since we got up. And we're not actually in Perth yet. The arrival time of 1.15am seems to have slipped by over an hour. We've discovered The Killers Live At The Albert Hall on one of the video channels, which would be a nice find except it's from the third album tour and therefore contains a high level of the shite they'd descended to by then. Christ, I'd forgotten that sax. Still love the first two albums' stuff though; they were meant to be playing Australia this week too and I did sort of half look into fitting one in, but they've had to pull the dates due to a bereavement. Wouldn't mind catching some local bands while we're out here, too. Although right now I just want a bed. The plane actually touches down on time. An hour seems to have slipped out of the time difference (a couple of days later our resident contact will attempt to explain this; there was some referendum on Daylight Saving Time recently) and I will spend the next few days with no idea what time it is back home - and not really caring...
Monday. We open the curtains to a blazing Perth morning and a view of the back of the festival stage: the nightshift guy who checked us in at 2am had told us the music only stopped about 1am, and that the hotel had complained. We'd replied that that was what we were here for... Behind it is a big wheel, and beyond that the Swan River which here forms a wide bay. A day just wandering around the centre drifts into an evening in Northbridge, an area round the station packed with bars, restaurants and takeaways as well as the city's Chinatown - even the guide book describes it as a bit rough and Boom reckons he nearly got mugged on his way to the pub, but the restaurant we find is anything but. The drink prices are a bit of a shock - you're looking at $15 (£9ish) for a couple of pints. We settle into the Mustang Bar on the grounds that it's got a stage and we saw some musicians loading in earlier - from a vintage American car with a long bonnet, and including a stand-up double-bass. Inside is what we guess may be Perth's entire psychobilly community; two lads in battered leather jackets with immaculate six inch quiffs and a girl in a rockabilly dress. Yep, every Monday night is 50s night and the three of us swell the audience number considerably.
The band are fantastic, though. Called The Rhythm Kings they do this every Monday night, two sets a time, good time old rock'n'roll that's probably all (or at least mostly) covers, although my knowledge of the period isn't really sufficient to confirm this. One notable number goes "I dream about a reefer five foot long" (Barry? Anyone?) but we do recognise "Folsom Prison Blues", there's a girl twirling her skirt as her partner spins her round and we can't help but join in. By the end of the second set we've got a dedication to us. The band are top blokes and make for a great first night, even if the 11pm closure's a surprise; we'd kind of thought tight licensing was a UK thing... still, an early night's probably a good idea, we seem to have clicked into the timezone well but I'm sure it'll hit us at some point. A little more reading before bed: Varg Vikernes is explaining that "we support Christianity because it oppresses people, and we burn churches to make it stronger. We can then eventually make war with it". In the light of which, travelling halfway round the globe because of the music that inspires you seems quite sane, really...
Expecting to be more disoriented by the time difference than we actually are, we've a couple of free days before the tour starts and decide to spend the first one mostly on a boat getting pissed. Sorry, what I meant was, on Tuesday we go on an organised vineyards cruise up the Swan River - on which was have a little training in Wine Appreciation. Basically the first "samples" come out about 10am and are distributed all too frequently throughout the day. We do indeed appreciate them.
We also note - I'm not sure if appreciate is the right word - that as we drift up the beautiful river past (among other minor local landmarks) the house Rolf Harris grew up in and the creek in which he honed the skills that made him a national backstroke swimming champion many years before introducing the wobbleboard to a generation of British kids via Saturday teatime telly, the boat has a quite terrifying selection of vaguely "alternative" soft-rock CDs with which to entertain us. Yes, as we go under a big bridge we get the Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge", thanks for that. I'm hoping the theme might continue - say Doves' "Caught By The River" - but instead it shifts into the unknown (and in these cases not without reason)... we're almost pissing ourselves at the lyrics of this one... "So please / baby please / Open your eyes / Catch my disease" (repeated, heavily). Turns out the man responsible for this not exactly tempting offer is one Ben Lee, formerly of Bondi Beach pop/punk band Noise Addict who were feted by Thurston Moore, toured with Sebadoh and put out several releases on the Beastie Boyss' Grand Royal Records. I can only presume that something really traumatic happened to Lee between then and this 2005 release, effectively lobotomising him. And god only knows who's responsible for the next selection: this a cheesy (low)power ballad with the heartfelt refrain line "You've got to follow through". Again sounds Australian, could be there are phrases that mean something here but not there? None of which excuses this exceptional ice-lolly advert we spot the following day...
Home already feels like a very long time ago, and it's that wonderful stage in a holiday when you know you have a lot more of it left that you've already had. Checking Facebook on Wednesday we learn Britain's had another snowfall - eight inches in Bradford apparently, although this may be a slight exaggeration, and four inches in Manchester. As the text from my mum arrives with the latter news I can't help but send her one back, attaching a picture of exactly what we're looking at at the time...
This is Cottersloe Beach, just a few miles outside Perth, and by the time it starts to get just too hot to be out in it's time to head back and start thinking about going to a gig. I have, as I generally try to, booked a hotel close to the venue - in fact this time I think I've excelled myself...
We start with a quick drink in the pub over the way - and if you think Golden Gaytime's a dodgy name for an ice lolly, let me just tell you the pub is called The Lucky Shag - check out this menu...
Here we catch up with Jamie, a local fan who grew up in the UK - Derby to be precise - and as such was quite used to being able to go to as many gigs as he could afford to. Including a fair few British Sea Power performances between 2002 and moving out here around 2006. I think I might even have been talking to him down the front at Bristol Bierkeller in late 2005, although I don't realise this til later. He loves the life out here but he's pretty startved of his favourite music; Australia is just far too far for most overseas bands to venture, at least unless they've reached a rich level of commercial success. Sure, there's live music to be had every night in the cities' bars; the listings pages are packed with local acts and cover bands - but if you want to see bands from other continents here, there's basically February. It's the tail end of summer - festival season, where just as in Europe a music fan can spend a few consecutive weekends watching live music in the open air whist eating fried snacks (although the weather's a little better here - and so, as we'll later discover, are the fried snacks). And when bands come over to play the festivals, they'll often stick a few tour dates in the weeks in between.
Back in the 80s, watching from afar, The Triffids never seemed part of the whole Australian guitar bands scene, and arguably "made it" in the UK (on the indie circuit at least) before they had much recognition back home; and then you realise that travelling from Perth to Sydney is much the same distance, in northern hemisphere terms, as travelling overland from Moscow to London. Perth's isolation even from the rest of the country leaves it doubly starved of touring bands for eleven months of the year; in February the calendar's so stuffed Jamie can't even afford to go to all the great gigs he'd like to. This is partly down to Perth International Arts Festival. Now in its 57th year, the oldest international arts festival in Australia features around a thousand performances and events across three weeks: there's drama, literature, comedy, dance, visual arts and music of every possible specification from opera to traditional indigenous sounds, jazz to metal - and on a hot Wednesday night in a temporary open-air venue backing onto the Swan River, British Sea Power playing their first ever gig Down Under.
It's not exactly sardine-packed down the front, a lot of those present are hanging back or sat in the seats, although here's a small clutch of excited fans crowding the centre - and the first song BSP perform on Australian soil is "A Wooden Horse". A treat for fans (our expat almost explodes with excitement) as opposed to a more general rabble rouser, but that's BSP all over: they do what they like and common sense doesn't always come into it. The majority watching the band for the first time are probably wondering why the hell Yan has the word "SHITHOUSE" written on the back of his suit-jacket in green sticky tape - and frankly so are we, not that you'd be likely to get a sensible response if you asked. An upbeat salvo of "Apologies to Insect Life", "Lights Out for Darker Skies" and "Remember Me" gives the front crew something to jump around to; the rest probably aren't going to whatever happens. Still, the band look excited just to be here and there's plenty of jumping on each other, launching of foliage and general high spirits as they play through a set heavy on "Do You Like Rock Music" material along with a run-out for one of the new songs they've been previewing recently - "Zeus" scuttles along with a Smiths-ish beat before shifting (via a guitar break that briefly threatens to turn into Fleetwood Mac's The Chain but thankfully doesn't) into a different gear entirely. Rumours that the band have been at the prog and Krautrock as they prepare to unveil their fifth album sometime this summer would seem not entirely unfounded. The set ends with a typical boisterous "Carrion" into "Spirit of St Louis" and an old-style "Lately/Rock in A" encore in which the potted plants around the stage are uprooted and hurled into the crowd; Noble, Phil and Hamilton attempt some rather precarious crowdsurfing and some older guy ends up draped in Phil's floral garland and Noble's guitar. Aside from the obviously delighted little gang in the middle we think the crowd enjoyed it but it's kind of hard to tell, we suspect some of them were a little taken aback by the finale. It's not often you end a gig covered in compost.
As, indeed, were the festival staff. Minutes after the band have left the stage their possibly long-suffering manager's joined us at the bar, "escaping the shouting": it seems that the potted plants, of which one's been whipped off home by a couple of Jamie's mates whilst I'm still trying to brush its remains out of my after-sun cream, were not in fact theirs to abuse. Oh well. Tomorrow night's headliners are Warp Records' first Aussie signing Pivot (such a shame they weren't earlier in the week) and I can't see them being that bothered by a reduction in houseplant levels.
Thursday it's time to catch up with our own country's history, at least the part where in entwines with Australia's: Fremantle Prison. Built by convicts in the earliest days of the colony, it remained in use until 1991 - once housing the young Bon Scott, later of AC/DC fame, for (apparently) having unlawful carnal knowledge and stealing twelve gallons of petrol. These were possibly separate offences, but you never know. These days it serves as a museum relating to the colonial / convict era and Australian justice over the subsequent decades; I won't bore you with the details - although would-be students of sociology, history and law and order can find out more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremantle_Prison - worth a trip should you ever find yourself down that way.
A reconstructed convict era cell. Not unlike some London B&Bs of my experience...
Back in Perth that evening it's the other side of British Sea Power, the side which most certainly wouldn't throw someone else's plants at people and the one where their own fans can be in the minority in the audience: a cinema performance of "Man Of Aran". The Astor is a beautiful art deco cinema just north of the city centre, and for everyone who looks like an indie kid walking through the doors (we clock a lad in a Mogwai shirt, and guess he'll be happy) there are four who very much don't.
Cheers to Boom for the photo; see what I mean?
The lady seated next to me, in bobbly cardigan and neatly set grey hair, asks what the music will be like: "it won't be all crash-bang will it?" Remembering the last time we saw this show, again in a film festival environment in Jersey, and the tutting and covering ears and walking out that ensued during the rather noisy and atonal "Spearing The Sunfish" section, I warn her there might be a few loud bits but mostly it's quite gentle with lots of cello and stuff. She seems reassured, and I'm hoping not wrongly so.
And then the lights dim, and we try and pretend not to notice the film's slightly out of focus and the band - performing, as they tend to with this, facing the screen (do they struggle with monitors, or is this a deliberate attempt to focus attention on the music more than the performers? Who knows?) are obscuring the subtitles slightly - but soon these minor concerns are forgotten as the majestic ambient-to-full-on sweeps of strings and cymbal rushes blend with the grainy landscapes. It seems a shame that the programme on our seats depicts only the four original members, as it's multi-instrumentalist Phil who seems to be the focal point in this venture whilst Abi's viola takes the lead for large parts of it. What might be incredible is the way this band, used to playing it fast and loose, now perform the piece as an orchestra would a symphony; I say might be because seven years or more after they first caught my attention I really wouldn't consider there to be a great deal they couldn't do if they wanted to. And that's not to say it's always the same - it isn't; possibly mindful of that Jersey audience "Spearing The Sunfish" stays clear of an all-out white-noise attack here, opting instead for a Mogwai-ish layered intensity.
It works. As the end credits roll the standing ovation applause goes on for a long time, and I turn with some trepidation to cardigan lady; enjoy that? "Oh it was wonderful" she smiles "and that lovely boy on drums, I could just take him home with me..."
It's something of a relief, then, to see Woody alive and well the following night in Melbourne.
We flew out of Perth at 9am on what we believe to be Friday, although it's that mid-trip time where the days of the week become meaningless and the whole timezone thing is somewhat unclear. We had not long left Perth when the dusty gold beneath us gave way to the deep blood red of iron country, and as we touch down to refuel and exchange passengers with connecting flights it glows around us. The local paper, the Kalgoorlie Miner, is delivered on board: the usual smalltown fare of a local cheque fraud scam, baby photo contest and adverts for sheds is interspersed with a telling insight into this still active mining town. Not just the full page of mining and oil stocks, but the two columns of the personal ads page reserved for "Amanda, 21, busty, friendly, good service, massage $60" and her ilk...
Melbourne itself, another couple of hours' flight away, reminds us of New York, its super-highrise skyline approaching as the bus heads for Southern Cross Station - and then the tortuous gridlock into which our yellow cab pulls out. But then it is Friday evening rush hour. Yep, we've "lost" another three hours. We think we're on GMT+11 now but we're far from certain. And our Travelodge hasn't been built yet. By the time we find our replacement accommodation - a rather swanky apartment that probably costs twice as much but that we won't have time to appreciate (although having a toaster to light fags off later when I discover I've lost my second lighter in two days is useful) it's too late to pay a visit to the "Neighbours" Tour & Sightseeing office next door (we initially find this baffling, before remembering that back home in Manchester tourists lap up the Coronation Street tour), and it takes some unravelling of the incomprehensible metro system before we reach Richmond.
The main drag (photo again c/o Boom, cheers, I think I was too stressed to remember to get one) has that "cool place to go out" vibe of Manchester's Northern Quarter or Camden, and the posters covering The Corner Hotel reveal it as a popular stop for pretty much any decent indie band who can afford to get themselves to Australia - at last, a normal gig, with supports and everything... although oddly they play not on the main stage, curtained off ready for the headliners, but on a little platform in the corner.
First on it is one Nick Huggins, who does kind of lofi poetic ambling folk with a guitar, some effects and a subtly used looper. His near-whispered words meanwhile are wistful small town thoughts about wasted days and the way people don't look at each other at the local swimming pool. Cultural references aside he seems quite un-Australian; during one particularly delicate tune two blokes accost him: "we fackin' love you!" and he just smiles shyly and carries on. Next, Seagull are in fact three blokes, of which one has a young Brian Eno island-and-dangly-bits haircut and an accordian, another a guitar, and the third an initially rather Thom Yorke-ish voice and a floor tom with a very wonky leg. As the set progresses they shift away from the sort of folky thing into more indie-pop territory but are rarely more than very mildly diverting.
British Sea Power kick off with a more traditional opening attack of "Lights Out", "Apologies" and "Remember Me" but find themselves struggling against technical difficulties that see their guitar tech crawling around onstage for what seems like much of the set - at one point Yan finds himself reciting a self-penned limerick about Paul Hogan while things are fixed. Not that this bothers the decent sized crowd - it serves to remember that British Sea Power on a (slightly) off night are still a cut above the vast majority of bands. Oddly it's "Canvey Island" that really gets the crowd moving as it builds to its climax, after which it's a "business as usual" performance complete with Noble finding something improbable to climb up.
The reason for my somewhat hazy recollection is not, on this occasion, alcohol related - although I do need a stiff drink after returning the mysterious phone call I got during the gig. It's my bank (it being mid morning back home). Was I aware my credit card may have been stolen? Well, um, no, considering it's (quick check) in my pocket right now. Yes, in Australia. Not in the UK, where it's apparently been used several times to try and purchase National Express coach tickets of a combined value of £47.20. Whilst I don't doubt that this is correct (despite having no idea how and when anyone could have cloned it, but I've not used National Express myself this year) I do find this a rather bizarre and oddly modest use of a stolen card number with a four figure credit limit - takes all sorts though. Yeah, put a stop on it, no harm done... bugger. I now have to make it through the rest of the holiday solely on the contents of my bank account. Thank god it's payday. Needless to say the three weeks betwen arriving home and next payday are going to be a little lean, to say the least...
We're finally relaxing over breakfast the next morning when my phone rings again. This time it's Virgin Blue, the airline on which we're booked on an early afternoon flight - except now we're not. Our flight has been "downgraded" - whatever that means - and we have to go an hour earlier or later. With visions of the later one being overbooked with passengers who didn't get the message in time and another frantic dash to make the evening's gig (or worse) we plump for the earlier one, which gives us approximately half an hour to get to the airport. Grab the luggage, march the the bus station, attach ourselves to dreadlocked studenty type for queue jumping purposes, on the bus, off the bus, done. At least we can leave Melbourne and its 20 hours of end-to-end chaos behind us. Except... the flight time comes and goes. The boards aren't telling us much. The flight reappears, delayed by half an hour. Then an hour. It is, in fact, flying at precisely the time the original one should have done. The original one is also doing this. I'm not sure I understand, but realise that Virgin Blue is basically Australia's Ryanair in terms of service: your only guarantee is that at some point a plane will fly you to where you're going, um, probably. Whatever. Arriving in Sydney we discover our hotel is effectively a glorified youth hostel - but hey, at least we've got one. Boom, who has left some aspects of the trip rather to the last minute and has been booking hotels on arrival in each place, hasn't. Not at the Hilton, the backpacker hostel dormitory, or anything in between. There is not a room to be had anywhere in the city - which given that it's a Saturday night in a place packed with the sort of business hotels that usually have rooms going begging at weekends, is rather odd.
As we take his bags to our room so he can head off trying to find somewhere "off-internet", we notice many of out fellow guests are wearing AC/DC shirts. Yes, it's only Australia's biggest ever band's first homeland tour in about a million years. Seventy thousand people a night, many of them travelling from across the country and further afield. Ah. That explains the hotel situation then. Oh, and the wrestling's on. And it's Mardi Gras soon. Two hours later Boom texts us to say he's given up but he has found a great pub with a band on - so soon we're paying the first of many visits over the next few days to the excellent Lansdowne Hotel. As we wait to cross the road (I've not mentioned this yet, but here in Australia we're finding you have to wait anything up to five minutes after pressing the button for a few microseconds of crossing permission) we can hear what sounds very much like "Ring Of Fire". We're not wrong. As I said, there's a big culture here of cover bands playing the bars - often doing a starter set in the early evening, and it's a brilliant way to warm up for your particular main event, whatever that may be. Partcularly if it's the absolutely spot-on and wonderfully named Cash Only...
We're very glad they do "Jackson" just as we're about to head off, it somehow bodes well for a great night. Unlike the taxi we flag down, who seems somewhat vague as to the location of the university social building (students' union, in UK terms), and we end up having to direct him despite having been in Sydney for about four hours. The bar, when we find it, is relatively quiet - but by the time we've got drinks in we've hooked up with a bunch of local fans - and a fellow awaydayer.
For us northern Europeans, long-haul awaydaying is an indulgence. You don't really need to do it. No Manchester date on Wooden Shjips' imminent brief visit to our shores? Leeds it is then, an hour on the train. If a band isn't playing your town you go and see them in another town, another country even: two hours out of Manchester by train takes you to London and another three or four to Paris or Brussels. Devoted fans of bands from far-flung lands might make the occasional pilgrimage - Ernst's Church trips, or the global confluence of Chameleons fans that descended on their Middleton home in 2001- the rest is just a great excuse for a holiday and to experience a band you love somewhere different. But what if you live in Brisbane? Those cities all look quite close down the eastern coast - but even Sydney is a 14 hour trek or a couple of hours on a plane. Kara, longtime BSP fan from Brisbane, was a little disappointed they weren't visiting (as were we: that's real Go-Betweens country, and we left plenty of slack ion our schedule in case something came up but sadly it never did) so has opted for the latter, and when we meet her in the foyer of the University's Manning Bar we've rarely seen anyone so excited about a gig - her first chance to see her favourite band in the flesh.
"I feel like I'm tripping!" says BSP's Noble when we catch him at the bar. The band have had a couple of days less to adjust to the time differences than we have, and very little sleep. Remembering the surreal haze through which I've watched bands in New York and Atlanta whilst fresh off the plane I'm kind of surprised by how non-hazy this feels; it's Saturday night and we're out to see a band. Although it is still warm enought to not need a coat even out on the terrace, despite being February - and Orion is upside down in the southern sky. We manage to completely miss the support, although one of the local crew tells us they're not much cop anyway so I won't lose any sleep over that. Inside, the excitement levels in the crowd are tangible - and they're rewarded with one of the best British Sea Power performances I've seen.
No technical issues tonight, as the band pull out what can only be described as an outstanding set. Reading the set-list back a couple of weeks later there's nothing about it that really marks it as a classic, the long overdue return of a beautiful "Blackout" notwithstanding, but those unquantifiables, the atmosphere and the energy, are spot on. And if the Perth and Melbourne crowds enjoyed the sets, here they absolutely fucking love it. With British Sea Power this does make a difference, as band and crowd energise each other into a big feedback loop. It peaks during the brilliant career-spanning attack that is "Zeus" (probably the best reception I've ever seen for an unknown song in a set otherwise all released) / "Waving Flags" / "Remember Me" / "Apologies", after which it takes a certain level of genius to finish the main set on an extended version of atmospheric instrumental "The Great Skua" complete with bird migration projections. With nothing particularly stupid to climb up here, Noble resorts to his other, newer, favourite end-of-encore game of attaching people to each other with enormous lengths of sticky tape - band, audience, anyone who gets in his way really. The bouncers look completely flummoxed.
The bar's shut by the time they finish, which is how we end up back at the Lansdowne which seems to have transformed over our absence into a sort of unofficial AC/DC aftershow - yes, there was another, rather bigger, gig in Sydney tonight and the bar is packed with hairy middle-aged men with official merch carrier bags. They've laid on some suitably noisy bands for the occasion: The Battery Kids are actually from Adelaide, touring to promote their debut album.
They're loud and abrasive but not without tunes: think maybe a young, hungry Muse had they been reared on a combined diet of grunge, hardcore metal and video games instead of prog and indie. Aggressive guitar crunches overlay frenzied bleeps and breakneck drums as the skinny youngsters ricohcet around the tiny stage as if they're taking their name literally. I'm not, as I've said many times, much of an authority on rock/metal in any of its guises but I'm watching them thinking actually they're at least as good as plenty of European and American acts of a similar ilk who sell records by the truckload. We end up chatting to some of the travelling AC/DC fans, explaining how yeah we're variously from England and Brisbane and we're in town for a gig too, but a different gig, a little indie band, probably not really their thing, and I'm struck by how the differences in music taste don't matter one bit because we're all effectively doing the same thing. It's past 2am by the time we fall out of there; Boom ends up sleeping at the airport. Which does foruitously give him a head start looking for a hire car in the morning, because we've thus far failed to locate one and come Sunday we have places to be...
"I have a car, it's a long story". The text from Boom when we've barely woken up is great news. Turns out after sleeping at the airport he was waiting in the rental car zone when it opened in the morning, eventually negotiating with one company to drive off in a car they'd just had returned - and even better, as they've not had time to clean it, they knock a good few dollars off the price. This is good, as by the time he's made the 15 minute drive to our accommodation he's managed to spill coffee on the front seat. I mean, um, he's noticed the coffee the previous hirer spilt on the front seat (not that I am expecting a Sydney car hire company to be reading this shite, but you never know...). The directions I printed off the festival website seem a bit vague, but as we follow them to the letter they turn out to be perfectly adequate. There's always a moment on an away trip into the unknown, whether it's in the far reaches of Cornwall or the conurbation around the West Midlands or here in a country we've never visisted before, where you see the first road sign mentioning your ultimate destination and it's cheers all round, and an hour or so north of Sydney along country roads with kangaroo warning signs (not that we actually see one) there it is, the sign to Wiseman's Ferry. Result.
The small town is named after Solomon Wiseman, a former convict who received a land grant in the area and established a ferry service on the Hawkesbury River in 1827 for the transport of produce and provisions to the convicts building the Great North Road; on the fringe of two National Parks the scenery is breathtaking as wooded banks tower high above the creek. A pretty amazing location for a festival then (Reading centre this most definitely is not!) and moreover one that's unlikely to draw many noise complaints unless the local kangaroos have a hotline to the council. Parking up in the most blistering heat we've experienced yet on this continent we're directed to a jetty for the 20 minute cruise to the site. Playground Weekender has already been going for three days, and when the boat arrives, those staggering off have that thousand-yard stare noted in workplaces across Britain on the Tuesday after Glastonbury. The ferry sweeps round wide river bends until eventually we hear distant beats, catch sight of a row of rent-a-yurts; we're here and... bloody hell it's hot.
No, really hot. So hot Australians think it's hot; I'm no judge of such things but if the 37 degrees reported on a beach information board down at Bondi the following (less hot) day is correct, we're talking easily the other side of 40. The festival is at least 50% a dance type event, with a couple of dedicated DJ tents and big-name sets scattered across the other stages, and just the Filth Stage reserved for up-and-coming bands; the main stage features a quite bewildering line-up which last night was probably the only time anyone will book Bjorn Again and The Brian Jonestown Massacre in the same place.
As we enter we're drawn to the Filth Stage by some classic "Antipodean Underground" sounds: Sierra Fin have that Nick Cave via dark-end Veils desert blues vibe that's completely at odds spiritually with the blistering sunshine and yet carries a kind of scorched-earth feel you just don't get in European bands. There's a real sense of vision here, a sense that this could be the next great Australian band I'm watching at a privileged early stage. Later I discover they have ambition, too: their album, due some time this year, will be "a concept album, a symphonic work where every song is linked to each other and forms part of a linear story, utilising an orchestra for almost it's entirety". That's their debut album. And yes, I believe they are good enough to pull it off.
Time for a wander: there's a tiny hop-hop stage where two lads in big shorts are rapping in unconvincing American accents over old soul-pop hit "Gimme The Night" (was that George Benson? If so, why do I even know this?). The main stage has no bands on for much of the afternoon, just Norman Jay DJing to a handful of rather bemused looking people. We suspect a fair few weekenders have started to drift away already. We find ourselves eating some lovely if rather odd Turkish pancakes. But the weirdest thing is - it's half three in the afternoon at a festival and hardly anyone has beer. The mainstage bar staff stand bored. Aside from a few hardy souls - largely male and with sun-faded tattoos - it's just too bloody hot. A bottle of water goes nowhere; a massive cup of multicoloured synthetic fruit slush little further. Add to that the fact that most here are on day four of this, and you'd have to be insane.
Boom took this excellent photo - across the festival site any area of shade is popular, which is why we spend a lot of the afternoon around the Filth Stage, or more accurately under the canopy in front of it. Dimity Claire And Bleeding Hearts is a slight exaggeration, as there's just her and a bloke, although research implies there's usually a horn section. Not today. He strums, she sings, with a cheap drum machine backing what they probably consider quirky lo-fi, but most people under the canopy seem to consider a bit rubbish. The lads behind us shout dryly "Yeah. That's... really... good." Untutored would be a polite description of both parties - although when they introduce a "new one" at the end that's more Regina-ish spike-poppy, I suspect they just need to rehearse the less-old ones a little more. Afterwards, the PA blasts out Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire". We are officially being stalked from beyond the grave...
And the lads who'd been sat behind us are in fact the next band, Royal Chant, who do classic bar-to-road Springsteeny American rock with a bit of a Teenage Fanclub / Lemonheads pop side that makes much more sense here than it ever has before.The lads who'd been sat behind us are in fact the next band, Royal Chant, who do classic bar-to-road Springsteeny American rock with a bit of a Teenage Fanclub / Lemonheads pop side that makes much more sense here than it ever has before; some of their tunes actually sound like the sort of ride down a cool freeway in the midday heat that we had getting here.
Ten minutes before British Sea Power's slot the area around the main stage is somewhat underpopulated to say the least. Headed down early for a good spot we've found ourselves surrounded by space and a handful of people lazily batting a beachball; another five minutes and two older ladies have pulled up deckchairs front centre. We rather hope a few more arrive. People, that is, not necessarily with deckchairs.
Starting with "True Adventures" the band draw the attention of the assembled few towards them, which is a start. The sound is ridiculously bassy (which at least bodes well for tonight's headliners) and the crowd very chilled to the point of being mostly sat down (that said, it is about a million degrees out here) but the band seem untroubled. Even when they're engulfed by the product of the biggest smoke machine ever. Never a standout on record, "Atom" is a clear highlight early on with a few people up and dancing, and Noble playing his guitar with a cushion someone's thrown onstage. As the song ends he chucks it back at the crowd. It's back at his feet seconds later. Perhaps it's got a boomerang concealed in it or something. "Blackout" and "No Lucifer" lead into "Carrion" and a short "Rock In..." and - that can't be it, can it? It's not. the last song British Sea Power play on Australian soil, this time round at least, is a stunning "Great Skua" just as the sun starts to fall behind the trees, a moment so beautiful it's actually indescribable.
Once again it feels like a privilege to be here (and it is, really; thanks again to Dave and the band for access) - over the course of five gigs we've seen all the different sides of British Sea Power, bounced around to favourites now approaching a decade old and seen tasters that assure us the fifth album will be another masterpiece (and how many bands can you say that about these days?); the rest is just holiday, although there's a few hours of music left to be had here and it's finally cooled down to the level where walking about is feasible without having to down half a pint of water every hundred yards. But how do you follow that? Don't really want to head straight off and watch some random band just yet, so we plump instead for Chips On A Stick, an early contender for Festival Snack Of The Year: cheap, equal parts ingenious and ridiculous, and unlike Primavera's now legendary Pizza Cones they're actually really nice.
Unlike Sound Casino, who (back on the Filth Stage) start off doing quite American stoner rock'n'roll; their bassist (who was watching British Sea Power) looks so wasted he might fall over any minute. They then proceed to get less interesting as the set goes on, but there's a good few very tanned and underdressed people (of both sexes) dancing wildly. Indeed, if you had a rock cliche bingo card ("keep awwn", "yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaw!" unnecessary bits of soloing, a last song with an audience-participation "woh-oh-oh-ohhh" chorus, etc) they'd serve you well. That there are more people dancing to this tripe than British Sea Power is faintly depressing, really, but then this is after all the country that gave us Jet. Thankfully Underlights have a much more subtle, melodic approach - mainstream end of atmospheric indie with some nice sweeping guitars and yearning, understated vocals; the sun's all but set now and it works rather well amongst the long shadows, but it's time to head back to the main stage...
Orbital: two middle-aged Englishmen with torches on their heads and a synth rig that looks like an Apollo lander. Getting that lot across the river must have been a laugh. They have, not surprisingly, drawn the majority of the weekend survivors. As we noted earlier the festival seems slightly more biased towards dance music (a meaningless term, I know, but you know what I mean) than rock, and for the Hartnoll brothers it must be quite refreshing to do festivals and play to a crowd young enough to have been their offspring - many of whom seem to be sporting cartoon "Red Indian" feather headdresses. We even spotted a security guard wearing one earlier; couldn't see the likes of Showsec tolerating such frivolity back home.
The set is much the same as the one they were touring last year, a Greatest Hits sort of thing with the emphasis foimly on the more rave-worthy end of their repertoire, which is fair enough: this really isn't the time or the place for weird electronica, but it's very much the time and place for a load of rapidly tiring, half-sunstroked party animals to find one last burst of energy to fling their arms in the air and shout along to "SATAN! SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!". "I'm giving you a feather from my arse" says a rather wasted looking lad dancing next to me, and indeed he does (from his back pocket, anyway). The screens flicker, the smoke machine goes into overdrive, the bass vibrates possibly to the very core of the earth, and when they merge "Halcyon" gradually but perfectly into "Chime" under the clear moonlit sky it's the second completely sublime moment of the day - and a fitting time to leave. We love this place but we don't fancy spending the night here so we head back to the ferry before the rush.
As we drift back up the river away from the festival lights we look up and have never seen so many stars; the Milky Way strectches visibly across the sky and I suddenly get what The Church were on about all those years ago, when Australia was just some far-off place that somehow gave birth to a whole load of inspiring music. Boom's off on his own adventure now, he's going to hang onto the hire car and head on up towards Brisbane to see what happens. Kara's home now, saying Saturday was one of the best nights of her life. And we have a couple more days in Sydney before staring the long journey home, and the part of this trip I've been looking forward to almost as much as the gigs: that's a proper awayday for you, though, the gigs are just the starting point.
Monday morning we run into Yan and guitar tech Paul down by the harbour: Yan's off home soon, and not looking forward to having to wear a coat again. He has a point - I've had a text from my mum telling of four inches of snow back in Manchester and as I tell him this with the sun blazing in our eyes it does seem like another world. Paul, meanwhile, finally gets the night off he's been waiting for tonight and the chance to see his beloved AC/DC on home turf on the last of their three nights here. He's already been to pay respect at Bon Scott's grave; I'm guessing it's had a good few visitors this weekend. Paul grew up in rural Wales with the love of rock'n'roll flowing through his veins; he's been in bands himself and roadied, guitar tech-ed and tour managed all over the world for numerous bands across the genres; even with his previously traditional rocker hair now cut short he is every bit the classic roadie as depicted in films and TV shows aplenty over the years, and now through a miracle of timing his work has allowed him to be a fan again for one night. Hope you enjoyed the gig mate...
So it's snowing at home, and we're here - Bondi Beach, one of the most famous stretches of sand in the world. I'm so glad we decided not to go home straight after the tour. I don't want to go home ever, right now. That said, it seems tough enough trying to get back to Sydney; after the third bus blasts past without even slowing, one of our fellow prospective passengers suggests four of us take a cab. Sounds reasonable. He has a blue Mohican, a strong German accent and a Cradle Of Filth T-shirt on. A young local studentish girl agrees to join us. The punk downs almost a full bottle of beer from his plastic bag and the girl looks scared. I try not to judge by appearances; anyway the whole Black Metal thing is still in my head, and I was amused by the book's reports that many hardcore fans of the genre considered Cradle Of Filth a bit wussy; they'd never even burnt a church down. I also happen to know that singer Dani Filth is a thoroughly nice and well brought up chap, as a mate of mine went out with his sister for a couple of years; there were civilised family dinners and stuff. We get chatting about the licensing laws and how restrictive they are in this otherwise pretty laissez-faire country and the conversation drifts towards London's late-night booze emporia... and the fact that many of such are run by Middle Easterners... oh. I won't repeat the next bit, but let's just say sharing a cab with an extremely polite but virulently racist German is just the sort of thing that happens on Awaydays. We get out when the girl does, feeling almost as relieved as she is quite blatantly looking.
Tuesday the clouds start to come in - it's easy to think (as you may well do just from what I've written thus far) that it's always blazing sunshine in Australia, but a little over a week ago there was torrential rain and flooding here. Never mind, we have just one more day here which we spend touring the harbour by boat and taking all those pictures everyone does when they visit Sydney with which I won't bore you. And a final evening in the Lansdowne which tonight is entertaining its guests not with music but with a rather deranged "pub quiz" in which participants are given a lump of plasticene and asked to submit a sculpture depicting Tiger Woods' recent extramarital indiscretions. Thee are some exceptional entries (ahem). Wednesday we check out of the hotel, have a long breakfast in one of the wonderful cafes down Glebe Point Road which I'm quite certain will be - alongside the Lansdowne - our first port of call should we ever find the money and the inspiration to return here (and more than anywhere I've been over the past few years' rock'n'roll tourism, I very much do) and begin the journey home. We are, as we have already established, a very long way from Perth. But I feel you can't really say you've seen a country if all you've done is hop from city to city on aircraft; we fly home early on Sunday morning and to get there by train you have to leave early Wednesday afternoon. Never having had enough money as a student to do the InterRail thing the longest I've spent on a train journey is probably the eight hours (and that includes Eurostar check-in time) from Manchester to Brussels. It's roughly 700km from Manchester to Brussels; from Perth 700km isn't even half way to the next town.
The first Indian Pacific service left Sydney on 23rd February 1970, and was the first direct train across the Australian continent, made possible by the completion of a east-west standard gauge route a few months earlier. It arrived in Perth early on the morning of the 27th, as indeed it will this year. Improvements in tracks and reduction in the time needed to change locomotives and crew mean it takes a day less than it did then. This is one of the most famous railway journeys in the world, and through that randomness of awayday timing, nothing more than the fact that it's the first service running on the route after the gigs had finished, we're on board for its 40th anniversary trip. For three days we'll be living in a cabin round about the size of an en-suite bathroom, and not the big posh sort, but it doesn't matter. The fold-down beds are a lot more comfortable than you'd initially think; the on-board food is reasonably priced, and outside the windows is an ever shifting vista which will stay with me for ever.
The first hour of Sydney suburbia soon gives way to the wide open space I dreamed about all those years ago when Grant McLennan retreated into his country-kid past. The Blue Mountains are indeed quite blue (courtesy of the mist from millions of eucalyptus trees), although the Megalong Valley isn't that long. (Sorry. Look, it amused me, OK?). Attempting to capture the beauty of the landscape on camera from a moving train is almost impossible, but to be honest you'd struggle to capture it if you were standing still here: the sun catching the road that runs parallel to the twisting train track in the foreground, the hundreds of shades of blue and green receding into the evening mist, to the faint outline of the mountains - miles into the distance; it's hard to even say how many miles. Sitting towards the back of the train, around tighter corners you can see the sleek silver-grey front carriages snaking through the scenery, its functional simplicity more suited to its surroundings than the garish paint schemes of lesser beasts. As evening falls and the long shadows around Bathurst (some vague motor racing connotations I can't quite remember) shift into twilight across endless farmland I find my internal jukebox playing a mish-mash of McLennan songs.
Waking briefly at 4am I'm not sure what's happening. We seem to be surrounded by a million points of light... I try and focus my eyes and wind the blind up a little, and to coin an old phrase: my god, it's full of stars. Never realised they could be so bright when there's nothing illuminating the surroundings but the dim lights of a passing train. And the horizon here is just that - no buildings, no mountains, just the curve of the earth, and the stars reach all the way down to it. Not for the first or indeed last time on this trip my mind's kind of blown.
The first stop, early Thursday morning, is in the old mining town of Broken Hill; unlike Kalgoorlie the minerals here have run almost dry and the town's main industry is residential care for the elderly; the street sign above illustrating its past and present perfectly. We take a trip up to the top of the miles long slag-heap, now a memorial for the hundreds of miners who lost their lives here - the commemorations run up to quite recently, but it's notable that they reduce dramatically between the start and the middle of the last century. Broken Hill was the birthplace of the Australian trade union movement, our driver tells us. His own feelings about trade unions are quite clear as he tells of sacrifices made and battles won for the good of miners here and across the land, the significant safety improvements and shortening of underground shifts that resulted from Broken Hill's pioneering collective bargaining. However he throws in the odd caveat that "things were a lot harder then" - presumably in case there are any Americans or other overprivileged / self-serving at the expense of others (I tend to find those opposed to unionism fall into at least one of these categories) people on board. As we wait for the party stragglers I have a quiet chat with him, and he confirms his position. "They gave so much to get those shifts down from nine hours to seven" he sighs "and now it's all twelve..." - the "all" in this case being the 400 miners remaining from a workforce that even two decades ago was ten times that. Some things are universal. I wonder how things are going back home, but only for a minute.
The Nullarbor ("No Trees") Plain is aptly named; its Aboriginal name also translating to something close to "fuck all". It's basically a massive piece of limestone which is, the train manager tells us, four times the size of Belgium. I'm pleased to see the recognised international unit of geographical area is still in use here, a hemisphere away.
This is Cook, population - well, according to the Indian Pacific brochure I downloaded towards the end of 2009, seven. The onboard magazine dated January 2010 says five. The commentary meanwhile says just four. You don't like to ask. However many of them there are, they're twelve hours from the nearest town in any direction, the nine hole golf course is apparently unique for its possession of not a single blade of grass. The town was created in 1917 when the railway was built and is named after the sixth Prime Minister of Australia, Joseph Cook. The town depended on the Tea and Sugar Train for the delivery of supplies, and is on the longest stretch of straight railway in the world, 478 km which stretches from Ooldea to beyond Loongana. This is the genuine outback, and something the airport to airport city hoppers will never see; by day, surrounded by a hundred of our fellow tourists (as well as several million flies) it's an oddity; at night we can only begin to imagine how quiet it gets.
For most of the twentieth century the population numbered a couple of hundred, but the town was effectively closed in 1997 when the railways were privatised and the new owners did not need a support town there, although the diesel refuelling facilities remain, and there is overnight accommodation for train drivers. I can't help thinking how weird it must be for the kids who grew up there, went to the school and swam in the pool, to come back now if they ever do. Many houses are much as their departing owners left them: stripped of personal effects but an old bed or table not worth carrying can still be seen through the dusty windows.
The stationmaster's wife, quoted in a womens' magazine article, says she's heard ghosts: the chatter and laughter of children around three in the afternoon as they leave the little schoolhouse which stands much as it did the day the last lesson was taught there, a handful of plastic chairs and a couple of pasters on the walls about the environment and global warming. The subject wasn't discussed a great deal in 1997 outside of political, scientific and environmentalist circles, but here water has always been in rather short supply. When the town was active, water was pumped from an underground Artesian aquifer but now all water is carried in by train, costing as much per litre as fuel. Attempts have apparently been made to introduce trees and other vegetation, but these have not been massively successful.
The train pulls away and leaves the stationmaster and his wife and the two service crew to their silent desert home, until the next train passes. There's another eight or nine hours of nothing to Kalgoorlie; the sparse trees pretty much stop after an hour. A person (and they have ventured here; this train track didn't lay itself, nor the parallel fibre-optic cable and the remnants of the telegraph posts it superseded) would have hours, not days, out here. There hasn't been a phone signal since Port Augusta, a good fifteen hours ago. The red earth is scattered with saltbush amongst the rocks, the occasional scrubby little green shrub; a solitary eagle flaps in the distance, there's the remnants of a limestone mine, and that's about it.
Then suddenly there are trees everywhere; a sign indicates the edge of the Nullarbor Plain and the ground springs into life. A couple of kangaroos bounce past. Midnight Oil's lines about how the "Western Desert lives and breathes" flash through my mind. Peter Garrett is all over the news today with his career in shreds and the rest of the Kevin Rudd government (I don't know why, but I just can't imagine Britain ever having a PM called Kevin) not far behind him. His ambitious carbon-cutting plans to fit every household in the country with loft insulation (apparently some parts do have winter and heating and stuff, hard as that is to believe right now) hit the world's biggest backlash when shoddy operators grabbed the contract cash, cutting corners off corners and leaving homes in a dangerous state; "four deaths of insulation installers have been linked to the programme since October, and 96 house fires. Emergency inspections have also had to be ordered in tens of thousands of homes because of the risk of electrification from foil insulation that was incorrectly installed" - this I learn a few hours later from the BBC News website, sitting in a railway siding an hour east of Kalgoorlie while the train refuels. Probably the only time Australian politics has ever been in the news back home outside of general elections; it seems Garrett has today been stripped of much of his responsibility. A terrible mess and no mistake, but I can't help but feel for him a little. Midnight Oil were still a relatively big draw, here (remember, again, how separate the country's music scene is from the rest of the world's), when he walked away from the rock star life to try and practice what he'd been preaching. You don't see Bono, Sting or their unspeakable understudies Thom Yorke and Chris Martin making that kind of sacrifice for the beliefs they continually wag their fat fingers at the rest of us about, do you?
The afternoon drags. The longest daytime stint and the least interesting scenery - whether the afternoon has been expanded by one-and-a-half or two-and-a-half hours is still unclear as we pass the Western Standard Time timing points an hour "ahead" of schedule thanks to Perth's determination to be awkward with respect to Daylight Saving Time. I can handle the idea that a large country may have several timezones, as the US and others do, but surely allowing them to decide independently exactly what they are is asking for trouble. Then the Train Manager tells us we will be arriving into Kalgoorlie at 7pm as timetabled. I give up. Not much to do for this indeterminate time other than read, anyway. I've just finished Jah Wobble's autobiography, he's another bloke I respect a great deal even if I don't have much of his actual music myself. Rather easier going than the Scandinavian stuff and a good read; never realised just how many albums he'd made, immersing himself in the music of a hundred cultures. Not just cherry-picking, the way pop stars usually do when they get the "world music" bug. Now I'm onto "Perverted By Language - Fiction Inspired By The Fall" and it's as weird and screwed up as that implies, and oddly brilliant. I don't often read fiction and almost certainly wouldn't have this if it weren't for its bizarre premise; my head's going to be somewhere very strange by the time we get to Kalgoorlie. Mind you if the impression we got of the place from its local paper this time last week (which seems, incidentally, like months ago) is anything close to reality it's gonna need to be...
This is the biggest open cast mine in the Southern hemisphere, our tour guide informs us in between brilliant anecdotes about how you still occasionally find a gold nugget here - her neighbours did, a couple of years ago, in their back yard, and it paid for the extension they were building. It's Friday night, payday weekend, and Kalgoorlie is drinking. Heavily. The streets are lined with pubs, some open since eight in the morning to cater for those finishing night shifts, all advertising the best "skimpies" - these being the topless barmaids for which the townis well known. "We local girls don't mind much" explains the guide, a former digger driver who looks like she could snap a man's neck with her bare hands should she ever need to, "but it'd be better if they actually could pull a beer properly". She then directs the coach down the street where the brothels are situated. A rather strange thing to note on a whistle-stop tour, but it seems Kalgoorlie has realised the tourism potential in both its indigenous industries. Those stopping longer can have a tour of the goldmine followed by a tour of one of these hostelries; our tour guide's been and she says it's not for the faint-hearted but her husband was quite interested in some of the things she learnt. Not much you can say to that, really. Back on the train we're exhausted, but then we are back on Perth time now so it's been a long day.
Breakfast, and the scenery has changed again. We're almost back where we started now; it's been just eight days since we left Perth but seems like a lifetime.
We spend a day up at the park overlooking the city, listen to Health soundchecking down at the festival stage (we can't actually go to the gig as we need a very early night and have pretty much run out of money anyway), one last evening meal in Northbridge, and then back to the place that seems to be the last port of call for any foreign awayday for a few hours' rest.
4am at Perth airport, and still last night in the UK we're 24 hours' travel away from returning to. There's a free internet kiosk so I log on to Facebook to pass the time, and there, just posted, is an update from John Robb: "RIP Larry Cassidy, Section 25". I'm stunned, he wasn't that old and I never knew he was ill. Section 25's "Looking From A Hill Top" was used by Tony Michelides as a sort of theme music to his radio show nack in the 80s and shares many an old cassette in a box somewhere at home with the sounds of The Go-Betweens and The Triffids, whose David McComb also passed on some years ago now. It's a strange feeling, a stark reminder of the passing years. I think of Grant McLennan and the fields of cattle and cane, and find myself suddenly very sad I never got to write that ultimate piece of fan-mail: "this country is incredible, and I came here partly because of words you wrote all those years ago".
The flight home seems to take much longer than it did coming out; back into the chaos of Dubai, switch planes, another eight hours plus an extra one for delays, and at a 9pm that's already five o'clock tomorrow morning where we came from (and feels it) we step out into the Manchester cold, pulling on coats that haven't seen action for a fortnight but relieved there's no actual snow on the ground. It's always summer somewhere but it's a long wait until our own; I feel like I might never have any money again, but I've seen so much these two weeks. Because for people like us, the seasoned awaydayers with our ever more ambitious plans, the music is the starting point; everything else is what you make of it.
Band Links
http://www.myspace.com/nickhugginsmusic
http://www.myspace.com/seagullmusic
http://www.myspace.com/sierrafin
http://www.myspace.com/dcandthebleedinghearts
http://www.myspace.com/royalchant
http://www.myspace.com/soundcasino
http://www.myspace.com/underlightsband
http://www.myspace.com/orbitalofficial
http://www.myspace.com/thebatterykids
* Many thanks to Dave Taylor for gig access and Boom for great company and driving *
