been making big plans with matthew caws twitter.com/julianahatfiel…
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) January 31, 2013
From 1p Album Club - Friends buying and reviewing albums bought from Amazon Marketplace for 1p.:
This is an album millions of people would love but hardly anyone owns.
True dat.
Ok then, more.
Here's some terrific videos of the Australian tour taken by Bambino Koresh's leticianischang:
UPDATE: See also Ride With Me (Sydney), It's About Time (Sydney) and Pale Blue Eyes (Melbourne Night 2).
Down About It (Sydney):
Choose Drugs (Sydney):
Ugly (Melbourne Night 2):
Somebody Is Waiting For Me (Melbourne Night 2):
Ride With Me (Melbourne Night 1):
Set list courtesy of Charlie:
- All My Life
- Butterflies
- Down About It
- Choose Drugs
- Rudderless
- It's A Shame About Ray
- Tourist
- Hospital
- Candy Wrappers
- My Baby's Gone
- Baby Gets High
- $1000 Wedding
- Somebody Is Waiting For Me
- Femme Fatale
- Ride With Me
- Nirvana
- Nighttime
- I Picked You Up
- Frying Pan
- My Sister
- Confetti
- Fruit Flies
- It's About Time
- Brain Damage
- Lament
- Into Your Arms
- My Drug Buddy
- Severed Lips
- Pale Blue Eyes
There's video of Juliana channelling Nico.
The Blake Babies (Dinosaur Jr) cover of Severed Lips was a special request from Bambino Koresh - the support band.
During a couple of Evan's songs, Juliana opted to lay on her back, motionless, with a guitar resting on her stomach:
Her attempt at meditating to the Dando sound was interrupted by a member of the stage crew checking she was ok!
This Perth show was the last of Evan and Juliana's late 2012 tours of UK, Ireland and Australia.
Thanks to all who have helped to tell the story of these shows including contributors to this site (including Carlos for various links), together with the members of This Is The Sound, and the forum at evandando.co.uk.
Reviews of this Sydney show (plus a photoset by Maria de Vera*) and the preceding night at Melbourne are at Tone Deaf.
UPDATE: Maria's Sydney photos are also on Flickr, where browsing / navigation is better.
Blake Babies FTW.
Also, photosets by Pete Dovgan at The AU Review and Maria de Vera at Flickr.
There are some great photosets by Andrew Briscoe at East13 Photography, by Mary Boukouvalas at The AU Review, and Tony Proudfoot at Tone Deaf.
Also, a nice blog review by ana74x at A Day In The Life..:
Then came time for Evan and Juliana. They alternated between his and her songs, most of the time singing on each others anyway. I desperately wanted to hear them sing Gram Parsons’ “$1000 Wedding”, which they did beautifully, as well as The Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes”. So so good. They sound so amazing together, and seemed to be having a good time.
There are some other comments from attendees at the This is the Sound group.
If you read Melody Maker 20 years ago, you'll remember writer Everett True.
In his unique style True writes about the Brisbane show for Collapse Board:
Two guitars, nothing else, and the mood is how you’d hope Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris once managed to capture it – Juliana and Evan are clearly very familiar with, and comfortable with, each other’s work. They alternate leads, except when they don’t. Everything drags slightly. That’s fine. We’re older now. Some songs it works just great. Others it doesn’t.
A report from Charlie, a Pom down under on tonight's show in Melbourne:
Can't really believe it, but just been to show at Corner Hotel. Very relaxed atmosphere lots of laughter, smiles and banter. Pretty much the same set as UK although shorter 'coz of support act.
Only noticeable difference is "Tourist" was included and that Evan also played electric but only on "Pale Blue Eyes" which has been last song/encore on both nights.
Tonight Evan played three solo songs to close the night and Juliana, who'd left the stage came back on for PBE.
The vocals are meshing better with each passing show.
The support, Bambino Koresh, are an electric drum, bass, guitar three piece who, clearly, like Neil Young, so there's plenty of electric guitar to enjoy there too.
Another little Aussie Q&A with Evan and Juliana at news.com.au:
J: We don't talk much about feelings. We have this thing in common, we like to make music and it's a language we both can speak. We don't really have to connect in other ways.
Ahead of the Australian tour which begins on Sunday (Dec 16), Melbourne's Beat Magazine has a short interview with Evan & Juliana:
Dando remembers encountering the members of the Black Babies (sic), albeit with the odd skewed image. “The drummer had a really nice rack,” adds Dando, to Hatfield’s amusement. “She did, she had a really nice rack,” Hatfield laughs. “Yeah, it was a great rack of toms,” Dando clarifies. “Actually, she didn’t have a rack of toms at all,” Hatfield counters.
blake babies "epilogue" --our very last record release/ep---is out now --available for the first time for your digital downloading pleasure
— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) December 11, 2012
'Epilogue' - the last Blake Babies release from 2002, is now widely available for the first time from today via most digital outlets including iTunes and Spotify.
The EP was originally available in limited numbers on CD and sold principally at the final Blake Babies live shows in the US.
It features 3 covers (Fleetwood Mac's 'Walk A Thin Line', MC5's 'Shakin' Street' and The Ramones' 'I Wanna Be Sedated'), a remix of 'Nothing Ever Happens', and an original Hatfield / Strohm composition - 'My Motor'. It's not automatic. You've got to work that stick.
'Epilogue' was the first release on Juliana's Ye Olde Records label. A handful of remaining cds found at Ye Olde HQ were sold by Juliana at $200 each as part of her first PledgeMusic project in 2011.
It's a bit cheaper now.
Juliana Hatfield's just dedicated My Sister to the royal spawn. Just had Evan's Big Gay Heart with a saw. Been that kind of night.
— Jude Rogers (@juderogers) December 4, 2012
It was that kind of night.
If you haven't seen it yet, don't miss the pro photoset by Beanotown Photography on Flickr.
As for the saw, you can see the saw on a seesaw by the seashore on this photo and on this YouTube clip. You'll note that Juliana sat this one out. She backed off whenever the woman with the saw (Mara Carlyle) came out. Very wise.
It was a great finale to the 5 night tour of England, Ireland and Scotland in the plush all seated surroundings of London's Royal Festival Hall.
Despite what you may have read elsewhere it was well attended. It's a 2,500 capacity venue and apart from the upstairs area the hall was largely sold out.
Out of shot in Juliana's photo are imposing balconies which flank the hall, giving it the feel of a posh galactic senate from Star Wars. They're quite impressive pods despite their failure to levitate or contain Natalie Portman.
It's fair to say most of the crowd were more familiar with Evan and the Lemonheads material. Expecting everyone to know a Madder Rose cover from a Blake Babies album is perhaps too ambitious!
Juliana's songs were well received though - notably her excellent takes on 'Ugly' and 'I Picked You Up' (a request earlier in the day on Twitter), together with the one most people knew - 'My Sister'. She grew into the performance as the night went on, taking inspiration from the venue rather than being intimidated by it.
Craig's sidebar: I took a friend along for their first Hatfield experience. Afterwards I was asked which of Juliana's albums I would recommend. We may have a convert! Also, hello to Lieve, Carsten and Charlie who I spent some time with. It was great to share the evening with you.
Surprisingly there were a few negative comments on Twitter from a handful of people who clearly went with very different expectations to the type of show these two have been performing in recent years. These views appear unrepresentative of the overwhelmingly positive atmosphere in the hall.
Juliana is a highly talented singer and guitarist performing songs which many of us have a long standing emotional attachment to. Evan's songs were effortlessly performed showcasing his talent as one of the most gifted songwriters of his or any generation - Juliana saying as much with an impromptu compliment to her partner during the set.
What's not to love?!
Evan and Juliana winging it as they go along is rather charming - someone commented that it was like watching talented teenagers jamming in the bedroom.
When they returned for the encore their lack of clear planning was even more evident. A late crowd request for 'Rain' was picked up by Evan and nearly paid off as he looked to Juliana for her consent. There's every chance this unrehearsed song so reliant on harmony might have come off as shambolic, but it's a chance a lot of us would have been happy to take.
Instead, Juliana decided that this was her time to say her goodbyes to London, leaving Evan to close the show on his own with what remains the finest Lemonheads cover song.
Mrs Robinson? Mrs Shmobinson.
No, of course it was 'Different Drum' - an odd but somehow fitting end. Evan and Juliana may appear to travel to a different beat yet there is a beautiful connection, enhanced by 25 years of exceptional songwriting.
It was a privilege to witness and for many of us in the crowd there's no other place we'd have rather been.
From the same uploader - see also My Sister / Ride With Me / Hannah & Gabi and Brain Damage. Elsewhere, this:
There's a photoset at Picasa.
UPDATE Another photoset by Rick & Mindy at Flickr
@julianahatfield last nite in glasgow twitter.com/fraser_reid/st…
— Fraser Reid (@fraser_reid) December 2, 2012
Graeme Virtue, giving a short 3 star review in The Guardian:
"Thank you for joining us on this fucked-up journey." Juliana Hatfield is talking about this gig, a stripped-down, two-person show banjaxed by technical problems. Her co-headliner plays a guitar borrowed from the support band and, periodically, all the power goes out.
Nicola Byrne, reviewing the Dublin show at GoldenPlec:
When it’s Juliana’s turn, she nails Candy Wrappers and Nirvana. Dando is content to just sip a pint while she sings Slow Motion, staring at her, his back to us. It’s a bit disconcerting, like he’d rather we not be there. But they work best together—he needs her. The usually sleazy, My Drug Buddy, is softened up with the introduction of Hatfield‘s vocal. It’s both sweet and dead-eyed, lax and eager. Her injection of uplifting tones to Paid to Smile almost makes the track cheery, while she’s the only one bringing some banter—if you could call it that.
There's a nice photo set by Mr Weir at Flickr.
See also other YouTube stuff - My Drug Buddy and It's About Time.
The crowd throw multiple requests at the stage and they do their best to meet some of them. A shout for ‘$1,000 Wedding’ though, which is a Gram Parsons song they’ve covered before, is a step too far for Juliana. She recoils in horror, reveals a dislike of Gram Parsons and complains that she can never get Evan to take his records off her stereo. Then someone yells ‘Streets of Baltimore’ another Gram Parsons song. ‘Yeah, I’ll do that’ cries Evan, I think Juliana gives up at that point and disappears.
As Rob mentions in the comments on the last post, the article at FIt For Moshing has been updated with a review.
There's also some YouTube stuff of Hospital, My Drug Buddy