33 posts tagged “sydney”

• Bread and Tulips (really sweet Italian movie with Bruno Ganz who was in Wings of Desire.)
• Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker (Chinese period piece bout a guy who woes a girl who owns a fireworks factory.)
• The Birds (I’d never seen it before.)

Bit of live video, bit of time-lapse. Lot’s of lightning.
More sensitive viewers will appreciate my editing efforts. While I was cutting up the footage, I discovered that at one point I heard my voice exclaim ‘fuck that was close!’ on the soundtrack, so I cut the sound and overlaid thunder.

These are a couple of photos of a big storm that rolled in over where I live on Tuesday 26th of feb.
Both are panoramas, and the dark one ‘broke’ Photoshop Elements and didn’t blend properly, but I liked the effect and decided to post it anyway.
Video to follow when it finishes uploading.

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Orange_Panorama1

Some more music for you folks.

Last year I had a clip taken of the Whitlam’s, this year it’s Dan Kelly. Lots of shot’s of Australians sprinkled throughout, and some sky divers.

It runs for a couple of weeks in the summer, with great music and activities.
Especially good are the free events. Backpackers must love Sydney in the summer.
Golden beaches, northern winter gear forgotten, and free gigs all over the place.

Last week the festival opened and a big chunk of the city had its roads closed, and stages were erected.
Huge range of music, and a trio of couples had public weddings.

I ended up with a couple of mates down at the Domain Park where a local musician, Paul Kelly was playing a warm up set for an international. Brian Wilson.
Weather was a bit crap, but the intermittent showers were really light and refreshing.

Mr Wilson seemed to be very distant and kept scratching himself. He looked like your dad sitting on the couch at home but suddenly transported to a stage in front of an audience of thousands. Huge video screens amplified every movement.
The crowd loved the music and everyone was dancing and singing along to songs which seem to have embedded themselves into the group unconsciousness.
The people I was hanging with, kept making comparisons with how dynamic contemporaries of Brian, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were.
I argued that Mick and Keff weren’t musical geniuses that had had suffered a breakdown and a long reclusive period.
They are brilliant showmen, but Brian was never really a front man. This is possibly the secret to the harmonies and instrumentation, and why the entire band ‘features’ in a lot of the Beach Boys music.
I got to thinking about it, and I reckon some performers like Prince can be both amazing live, and as creative forces.

Last night it was the famous ‘Jazz in the park.’
This event has been regularly held for years. It was shut down for a while cause it was ‘too popular.’ The audience in the Domain Park would overflow and cause the organisers to have conniptions.

The event was restored and this year the main act was El Barrio. I reckon there were possibly more people who showed up for the Salsa then to gawk at last weeks Beach Boys living legend.
When we arrived a valiant four piece jazz band on stage was almost inaudible over the racket of picnic dinners.
We made sure we didn’t sit behind the ‘installation like’ jerry-rigged Bedouin tent held aloft with inflatable trees.
Found a spot behind an old couple who looked like they had been there since lunch quietly reading books and ignoring the hub bub.

The field was covered with picnics and blankets, and umbrellas, and booze, and children, and pillows, and collapsible or inflatable furniture.
I saw one older couple Unpacking folding chairs from the back of a huge Honda Goldwing which was parked amongst a crowd of tiny little Italian scooters.

I’ve been overseas for a bit, and busy the last couple of years so it’s been a while since I attended a ‘Jazz in the park’ and things have changed a bit…
Being buzzed by the police chopper during the Paul Kelly set was a bit crap. They whipped out the flashing lights and played the search light over the nearby buildings as though they were hunting for those evil (huh can’t really call them ungodly these days ha ha) terrorists.
Bicycle parking and chair hire: funny little bike parking station had been set up behind the stage, and the queue to return rented chairs once the performance was finished was almost as long as the queues to the toilets.
The sound-desks have turned into sound-towers
The food stalls are better quality. For some reason the beer drinkers had to use plastic cups but people supping wine were allowed to walk off with liquid filled glass clubs (a full bottle of wine.)

This is a follow up to the photos I posted last week….

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It’s taken me a week to get the videos cut up (filling in the spaces in-between bursts of gainful employment.)

This event was held on Sunday off Sydney’s Eastern beaches.
The course is drawn between the first two Surf Life Saving clubs in the world.
Starting in front of Bondi Surf Club, it runs out from Bondi, around McKenzies point and down the coast into Bronte Beach. A distance of 2.2 - 2.5km (depending on the positioning of the buoy off McKenzies point).

I was pretty impressed watching this mass of people swim out of the bay, down the coast, and then back in to shore.
There were young ones, oldies, chunky and thin.
They were carefully watched the whole time by the ‘water safety’ folks.

The embedded map has the coarse drawn on it, and clicking on the pins opens a video up.

Use the controls to zoom in and out, and drag to reposition the map.

Here are some photos and I’ll post a more detailed entry with videos later.

This event was held on Sunday off Sydney’s Eastern beaches.

Our country elects a new government in a week’s time, so the local enviro groups organised a ‘Walk Against Warming’ march through the city streets.
We had a march last year, and the blog entry is here....

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…and this is the video of this year’s event.

The band is Watusi who played to entertain the folks who walked. The music is South American inspired and there is another video of these guys here…

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About twenty thousand people turned up, which is pretty poor considering the number of bodies living in Sydney.
I hear that Melbourne had fifty thou.
The usual politicking types got up to make a short speech. The crowd booed the Left wing party representative, cause like other liberal parties all over the planet, it’s hard to tell the difference between the left and the right these days.
The Right wing didn’t even bother to turn up. At least those guys never change.

This is one of my favourite events in Sydney. Sculptures are placed either side of a path that traces the cliffs above the coast, to the East of Sydney city.
I went with some friends of mine who regularly buy pieces if they find something that appeals.
Unfortunately this year there seems to have been an increase in the prices, and a decrease in pieces that piqued an interest.

I’ve posted some photos in the gallery. Some at a stupid resolution so zoom in and check out the details.
I was a bit disappointed by the standard of works this year so it was thin pickings.

Twas a very hot day and I scored a sunburn despite the posh Nivea sunscreen lol
While looking for a coffee, I discovered a stall selling ‘non colonialist’ coffee and chocolate.

www.mayancoffee.com.au

Great coffee (I went back for a second later in the afternoon)
All the staff looked like they were volunteers, and I bought a bag of chocolate coated coffee beans with a hint of cinnamon and chilli.
They were canvassing for volunteers to travel to Guatemala to teach English and suchlike.
Boy the French must be pissed that English and Spanish became the international languages.

I like these community festivals cause all sorts of folks can be found wandering between the stalls. Lots of dogs and kids about too. This video is of a dog show, which seems to be traditional at these events.

There’s the party animals too, and they tend to gravitate towards the dance party style sound systems. such as at the end of this ‘stream of consciousness’ type video.
Lots of music, people, and a brutal slaying of a stuffed toy.