An amazing day yesterday at Ho-Hai-Yan festival in Taipei. We arrived early at 10am for sound-check. Clear blue skies on the beach-front main stage, it already felt like 40 degrees. Sound-check done we had about 7 hours til show time. Tried sleeping back-stage but it was too hot in the band tent. Went for a swim to cool off late in the afternoon. We hit the stage at 6pm. Probably the best festival show we’ve ever done. So much fun. Sky Caves In was a personal highlight. Turned into an epic 12 minute journey with a huge building techno jam in the middle – Max on hands and knees poised over her keys, in Hendrix-style instrument worship. Totally nuts. Crowd went ballistic.

Ho-Hai-Yan festival – Taipei, Taiwan 10th July 2013.

We’re both high on the whole thing today. What a wild show. We’ve got some incredible footage & still shots, and the whole thing was filmed for television. When we finally got back to the hotel last night, there was some amazing first vision on the news. Apparently, they’re editing the show for national broadcast later this week.

We’ll be posting pics and video soon as we can.

Fires out.

Final rehearsal today for the Ho-Hai-Yan Festival tomorrow. A little tired now & back at the hotel. Resting up. Easy one tonight. Big big day tomorrow. We’ve got the sunset time-slot on the main stage. Should be brilliant.

Buddhist Temple Taipei yesterday morning.

Yesterday we got up early & went down to a Buddhist temple in Taipei. Awesome. Took a whole bunch of video for the tour diaries. Locals crowded in there for Monday morning prayers.

Adrenaline running for tomorrow.

Fires out.

Arrived in Taipei yesterday around 3pm. Jet-lagged like crazy for the rest of the afternoon. Met Kent for a moment at the hotel before crashing for an hour. Went out to get a ‘step up’ transformer from a technology night-market a few train stations away. Got lucky straight away & found exactly what we needed. Voltage here is 110 (like the US) & some equipment (like guitar pedals & in-ear monitors with Aussie transformers) don’t work unless you get a converter. The night market was awesome, tech-heaven for computer geeks… Back to the hotel to rest. Tour manager Tom knocked on our door later in the evening.

Taipei skyline, yesterday.

Rehearsed for about 4 hours today. Sounding great. Took ages to get going. Maybe the Jet-lag or the heat. It’s like Darwin here. Humid & searing. Just got back from seeing the city from the observation deck at ‘Taipei 101’ which used to be the world’s tallest building. Now it’s a mere third, standing over 500 metres & 90 odd floors high.

 Rehearsal again tomorrow.

Fires out.

Taiwan flight tonight. Last minute packing. Everything seems to be in order. Only thing remaining – a ‘step up’ transformer to convert Taiwanese voltage from 110 to 240. Have to get one when we arrive. Couldn’t get it here. We’ll arrive in Taipei tomorrow, via Kuala Lumpur. Rehearse for 3 days, Sunday to Tuesday. Ho-Hai-Yan festival in Taipei on Wednesday. Side show at Revolver Bar on Friday (details on the Shows page). We’ll be filming another tour diary as we go. Check in here for daily updates & video.

Fires out.

Live Video Tuesday (on this Wednesday). Little known here in Australia, and most places outside their homeland, Danish band Kashmir first came to my attention about 8 years ago when they released their 6th album ‘No Balance Palace’. David Bowie appeared on one of the singles from the record. It was hard to believe I’d never heard of them – such an awesome band, amazing songwriting.  I actually had the pleasure of seeing them at Hi Fi Bar in Melbourne, supporting Something For Kate a few years ago. When you meet a Danish person, ask them about Kashmir – the band is often a source of national pride. The video below was taken at Roskilde Festival in 2003 – an epic and moving song, ‘The Aftermath’.

Fires out.

We held a secret show yesterday in our lounge, testing a concept about doing a cruisy weekend afternoon gig outside of the well-worn pub environment. It turned out to be one of the most fun shows we’ve done for a while. We’d converted the room into a half-pub, half lounge-room kinda space – PA, amps & backdrop on one side, couch, chairs & coffee table on the other. The Vagrants (Steve & Renata) opened proceedings & gave us acoustic versions of classic Vagrants tunes. The crowd loved it. We hit the ‘stage’ around 4pm & cranked out some old ‘Yak Bar’ favourites from the first album. Songs we haven’t done in years like ‘Possibly Human’ & ‘Any One Time’. Campbell broke out the bag-pipes during the encore for ‘Group Therapy’. People stuck around to shoot the breeze under the back verandah heater, which Stalk kindly lent us for the day, for a few hours after the show. Really great catching up with everybody – we don’t often get the chance at a pub gig. Looking forward to more shows here in the lounge.

Campbell bagpipes the encore at yesterday’s house concert. Pic courtesy of the mighty Mal Bowker.

Fires out.

This time next week we’ll be on our way to Taiwan for the Ho-Hai-Yan festival. We’ll also be playing a side show at Revolver Bar, Taipei. Check the shows page for details.

Fires out.

Politics bores or frustrates many people. But if you’re a tragic follower of politics, it doesn’t get any hotter than the past 24 hours in Australia. This morning, we have a new leader, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who last night deposed our first female PM, Julia Gillard. Rewind 3 years, almost to the day, and Gillard deposed Rudd for the same leadership. Both leaders can now lay claim to having been Prime Minister in BOTH terms of this Labour government. I know it’s geeks-ville, but these are wild times in Aussie politics. Over the past three years, we’ve had a ‘hung parliament’, minority government, gender discrimination against Gillard, Gillard knifing Rudd in the dead of night, Rudd knifing Gillard last night – and through all this, a strong & growing economy which has avoided the recession the rest of the world has suffered for the past 5 years. On the other side of politics, the conservatives have many problems of their own – though they’d like us to believe otherwise (Abbot? Turnbull? Anyone?).

Julia Gillard & Kevin Rudd in Parliament.

For mine, last night, the Australian electorate got back what was unfairly taken from them by a cloak-and-dagger Labour caucus; the person they’d voted for in the first place – with all his faults and unpopularity. For the past 3 years, two-thirds of Australians have consistently wanted Rudd re-instated as Labour leader. Perhaps last night, the people had spoken.

So what of the other side of politics – and the immensely popular Malcolm Turnbull, who was knifed by the current leader Tony Abbot? These are crazy times and, just maybe, we haven’t seen the last major upheaval before the impending election. Perhaps ‘the people’ will have one more thing to say about the Liberal leadership.

Either way, it would be nice to see some policy debate. Hopefully, that’s not too much to ask.

And I do feel sorry for Gillard. But last night, her karma came knocking.

Fires out.

Live Video Tuesday – Led Zeppelin at Royal Albert Hall, 1970 (full concert).

My favourite Zeppelin album, Houses of the Holy, turned 40 today.

Fires out.

Got down to The Thornbury Local on Friday night. Started the night off with a few quiet ones at The Carringbush – a great little pub on Langridge Street in Abbotsford. Classic old-school atmosphere. Occasionally they have bands playing on Sundays – often iconic indie acts who were big around Melbourne in the 80’s & 90’s. But I digress. We ended up at The Thornbury Local, a really cool little bar also with a great atmosphere & friendly staff. These days I seem to end up in amazing drunken ‘deep and meaningful’ conversations with friends & eventually strangers. This night was no exception. Had a ball. At some point, the guys below kicked off a set of obscure cover songs on banjo & acoustic guitar. Stuff from Radiohead, Pixies, Bjork etc. We were loving it.

At The Thornbury Local, Friday night.

The walk home saw me, yet again, taking on that 1am souvlaki with extra garlic & chilli sauce. Not good for those in close proximity the following day. Got too cold by the time I made it to Westgarth & jumped into a cab (poor driver).

Fires out.