Back in September last year Jools and I went off to see Shane Howard play at Harvester Moon in Portarlington. (If you aren’t on their mailing list you should be). We decided to make a bit of day of it so we found a B&B (with a bay view) and a totally unexpected “pick you up after the show” delivery service. Seriously cool.
On to the show.
Shane’s performance was just brilliant. With one or possibly two exception’s, all of my favourite Shane Howard gig’s have been down in Geelong/the coast/Bellarine. The evening started with Shane sort of playing his own support, his daughter Myra opened the proceedings with a really great set (Shane accompanied on guitar and backing vocals). I believe you can hear more of her on the new “Goanna Dreaming ” album. I will rummage through my recording and see if there is a track that does her justice.
Next up was Shane, just him and a guitar. It really doesn’t get much better. The set list was a reasonable stroll through his catalogue of songs, some old and some new. Of the old ones Solid Rock was my favourite (it always has been – my all-time favourite version was was the day Goanna played the Lygon St Festa, back when the Festa had bands and that was a long long time ago (someone has suggested early November in 1981? – really that long ago huh?). We walked around the corner from Queensberry Street and there they were. Complete with a Meyer sound system. Totally brilliant sound and an even better performance. and as usual, I digress.
I figure it will be the perfect song to put up.
Yes you have all heard it a million times before and one more isn’t going to hurt. Let your mind wander back to where you first heard it.
If you ever get a chance to see Shane play, grab it, he is not to be missed.
Sorry this took a year to post.
Boring Tech Stuff:
The Zoom H4n recorded in Stereo @ 44.1kHz/16 bit. It was sitting in a pocket on my messenger bag and just pointed at the stage. We were about 2.5m back from the stage (second table). The room is a long skinny room with the PA above our heads.
The audio recording was cleaned up in Sound Forge.