On a soggy and wet Sydney night, Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor of Slow Club played a not-to-be-missed show at the GoodGod Small Club.  Hailing from Sheffield England, Slow Club are currently touring the world after the release of their second album “Paradise”.  The two-piece have stopped off in Australia to play a couple of shows before they head to America and then back to England.  ‘Paradise’ was my favourite album of 2011 and the second I heard they were playing a show in Sydney, I didn’t hesitate to book my tickets.

My boyfriend and I arrived at GoodGod just after 8:00pm.  This was the time that doors were meant to open, but punctuality has no meaning at these events.  GoodGod consists of a little bar/restaurant and a ‘small club’ at the back.  Luckily, arriving early worked out well for us as a sizable queue had grown by the time we were finally let in at 8:30pm.  It was a good turnout and the crowd were generally well behaved throughout the night, the only exception being the standard rude idiots who squeeze into spaces that don’t exist.

The venue itself was aptly named, as it was a small club.  This meant that wherever you stood, you’d probably get a good view of the stage as long as someone tall didn’t stand in front of you.  We were fairly close to the front and had a good view of everyone on stage, which was great as there was a lot of movement when Slow Club came on.  Live music sounded great in the club, which was a pleasant surprise unlike other venues where the music sounds too distorted to be enjoyed.

Slow Club were supported by two local bands – Palms and Achoo! Bless You.  Palms kicked things off at 9:00pm and played a pretty tight set of energetic indie rock.  I thought these guys were pretty good and had some catchy tunes.  Next up were Achoo! Bless You and I don’t know what else to say except they were a bunch of hippies.  Being a boy-girl folk duo, they played your typical soft acoustic pop songs with fragile and nasally vocals.  There was a lot of loud chatter during their set and you could tell the audience weren’t really paying too much attention to them.  The guy was too busy sharing his stoner stories while the girl had a glockenspiel that made no noise, though she did have ukulele!  Needless to say I was glad when they announced their last song.

We don’t care about your mop inspiration

By 10:30pm we were getting pretty sleepy and tired of standing.  However, the sight of Slow Club walking around and setting their gear up picked me right up and by the time they were ready to go, I was pretty excited.  Slow Club were absolutely brilliant and played their whole set with utter charm and amazing energy.  You could tell that they were thoroughly enjoying themselves and this passed onto the audience.  They played mostly songs from “Paradise” mixed with some from their first album, “Yeah So”, and two new songs to boot.

I’d be hard pressed to pick my favourite songs from the night because they were all so good.  Songs like “Where I’m Waking”,  “All Our Most Brilliant Friends”, and “If We’re Still Alive” were full of liveliness and fun and it was great to see the band bouncing around on stage and having a good time.  “Horses Jumping” and “Never Look Back” were beautiful and filled with emotion and “Hackney Marsh” needs to be mentioned just because of the saxophone solo (even if they did stuff up after)!  A lovely acoustic rendition of “Gold Mountain” towards the end of the night showcased their wonderful musicianship with their vocals, which sounded fantastic by the way, beautifully melding together.

Charles’ guitar sounded clear and rich the entire night and he played with so much energy that by the last song, he only had 2-3 strings left on his guitar!  Which wasn’t too surprisingly considering he was shredding it up the whole time, especially during “The Dog”.  Rebecca played with equal vigour, whether it was on guitar or drums and had some fun interactions with the audience.

Things wrapped up by midnight, but I could’ve easily stayed and listened to them play all night.  On a side note, Charles and Rebecca are a lot taller than I thought!  All in all, it was a fantastic night and Slow Club were better than I could’ve imagined.  I really hope they come back to Sydney soon.  You can bet I’ll be there!

We’re from Sheffield, England!

Slow Club Paradise on Amazon

Harry Potter The Exhibition 2012

My Tech on Things isn’t just about gadgets, gaming and operating systems. Well it was, until now. I’ve thought it a good idea to broaden the horizon a little and review an exhibition I went to see recently. If you haven’t guessed by the title it’s the Harry Potter Exhibition which is on display at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia (until 18th March 2012).

If you’re a big fan of the films you might want to check out this collection of props. Sessions sell out very fast so if you’re thinking of going it would be a good idea to book ahead online. Photographs were not allowed to be taken inside the event however I managed to snap a pic of Ron’s flying car (in the second movie) whilst waiting in line to enter.

The layout of the exhibition was as follows – First we were taken inside a room with a woman and the sorting hat. She proceeded to put the talking hat on a child’s head and it would call out which house they wanted to be put in. Unfortunately no child wanted to be put in Slytherin, instead all wanted Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. We then proceeded into a more open room where we could look at the different items at our own pace.

Some of the cool props on display that spring to mind include the giant chess pieces, Hagrid’s costume (he’s really freaking huge), the Horcruxes, various wizard’s wands and the hippogriff.

It took my girlfriend and I about an hour to see everything inside. Our favourite item of the collection was Snape’s potion book from when he was a student. It contains Snape’s handwritten notes over the text and is really quite detailed! We thought there would be more to see and were a little disappointed there weren’t any scale models of Hogwarts Castle.

Another thing I thought let the exhibition down was the lack of quality in the gift shop. The scarves were made of really thin material and, like the ties, did not actually have a house logo on them. Priced at around $30 I thought I could definitely find something better on eBay. And sure enough - http://goo.gl/fV64J

It was an ok way to spend part of an afternoon however given the opportunity again I probably wouldn’t see this exhibition. There wasn’t really enough to do and the headache getting through the over crowded gift shop at the end didn’t seem worth it.

Harry Potter: Complete Collection on Amazon