Melbourne and "Australia All Over"

Hiya Folks! I realised I forgot to tell you about our little Melbourne trip! We (Vincent's Chair) were lucky enough to play at Manchester Lane which is a great venue situated right in the heart of Melbourne city in Manchester Lane. There was a respectable audience for a Tuesday night, and we played just ahead of Melanie Horsnell, who is a Sydney singer-songwriter who gets a bit of airplay on Triple J. I really liked the venue and would love to play there again.

Most recently I sang "live" on ABC radio's "Australia All Over". This is a national program which airs every Sunday morning from 6am to 10am. Since about 1988 the host of the program, Ian "Macca" McNamara, has been playing a song I recorded about the riverboat steamers along the Murray on his show. It's an Australian folk song which doesn't generally fit with the usual repertoire that I do, but is an historical record of these river ships of our Australian heritage. So on Sunday the 4th Macca and his show were doing a live broadcast from Goolwa. Goolwa is a South Australian town south of Adelaide where the mighty river Murray meets the sea.

As the show begins at 6am and as the broadcast must be live across Australia and as we are a bit behind the eastern states the show began at 5am! That morning was the beginning of daylight saving so when I got up that morning at 4am it was actually 3am! But it was an excellent morning and I sang "The Steamers" and "Big Yellow Taxi". Thanks Macca and Lee Kelly!

Later that day I played a solo gig at the Komodo Cafe in Prospect, Adelaide. It's a really great little cafe with a terrific atmosphere where you can hear some excellent live music.