15 December 2009

I did my third concert show at the Burdekin Theatre, Ayr, Queensland, with the Queensland Police Pipes and Drums band and, as with the first two performances, the “punters” went out of their way with an incredible reception for the entire show and it was marvellous hearing the waves of applause and laughter throughout the entire evening.  Apart from the QPP and Drums, within their performance, four of the pipers do backing for the band in tunes such as “Amazing Grace”, “Highland Cathedral”, “Hector the Hero” etc., and this addition of keyboards, bass, full drum kit, and conga drums plus an incredible opening of the show featuring the didgeridoo is brilliant.  Have you ever heard a Scottish pipe band playing along with a “didge”?  Believe me, it’s something else and it spells at the start of the performance that this is going to be an evening of sheer entertainment!!  Also in the concert we featured the Burdekin Celtic Dancers, six really bonnie lassies, all of Scots heritage, who really have mastered the difficult art of Highland Dance.  The six dancers performed to the music and song of “Johnnie Cope” with which they had won Gold at the recent Eisteddfod and, deservedly so - brought the house down!!  Their second spot was equally well received.

From my point of view, things really “fired”, with lots of strong laughs for the gags and my choice of songs seemed to be what the audience wanted to hear and the generous applause was music to my ears - I couldn’t have asked for a better reception!

What more can I say than we had a discussion with the theatre management regarding the possibility of going back to the 530 seat Burdekin Theatre at the same time in 2010 - and then we expect to fill the venue to capacity, although the theatre Manager, Les Alberts, was pretty thrilled with nearly 400 patrons, considering the local Christmas competition is very strong with the usual events taking place at this time of the year - AND on a TUESDAY EVENING - ‘nuff sed!!!

20 December 2009
Last night, 19 December, was the final show for “Jazz in the Basement” at the Gold Coast Arts Centre.  It was the end of a 5-year run for the superb Harry Lynn Quartet and my own, almost three-year run as compere/vocalist (non-Scots songs) which I really enjoyed, as it made me stretch my vocal ability a bit more.  For the final evening we added three guest musicians and the seven piece outfit, playing a Dixieland programme, had the capacity, completely “sold-out” room, rocking along like you wouldn’t believe.  Yours truly had an absolute ball and, to keep in line with the theme of the evening I did some Jolson numbers such as “Swanee”, “Toot-Toot-Tootsie Goodbye”, singing instead “Goodbye Basement, Goodbye!” etc., and we had a lot of fun!!  We had