[Jeff and Jane Scott]

g'day all again

Well, what a show! Has dislodged the '98 Redneck Wonderland show as the 
best I've ever seen from the Oils.

Having read last week's post about the audience request setlist last week 
in Sydney, I had a feeling I knew what was coming when the show began with 
Pete on his own doing some vocal and harmonica lines about this and that, 
joined by Martin and Jim for US Forces with the first verse sung entirely 
by the crowd, then the others coming in for the rest of the song.

This and the next three songs were done with Rob on the standup kit at the 
front.  Then Pete made the announcement that just to keep things 
interesting we needed to write down our requests and pass them to the 
front.  I had toyed with the idea of taking a few pre-written requests with 
me in case this happened, but I didn't.  I didn't really think it would 
happen.  So none of these requests came from me, but it was a cracking set 
of songs all the same!

So here's the setlist - all the songs are here, but (probably) not in order 
in the middle.

(Rob up front)
US Forces
Luritja Way
Short Memory
Blue Sky Mine
(Rob to kit)
(Begin requestarama)
Is It Now?
Lucky Country
Ships Of Freedom (Rob at the front again for this one)
Jimmy Sharman's Boxers
Beds Are Burning
Too Much Sunshine
Kosciusko
The Real Thing
Only The Strong
Dead Heart
Redneck Wonderland
Read About It
---
One Country
Truganini
Sometimes
--
Power And The Passion


So, to the details.  all I can say is it went off!  The show was sold out, 
so it was quite a bit more crowded than the night before, but very well 
behaved - no-one had to be dragged out at the front tonight which was 
good.  The only negative from the crowd was the fuckwit who managed to get 
from one of the upper balconies onto the lighting scaffolds above the stage 
during Read About It, threatening to turn the best Oils show ever into the 
worst by falling to his death into the middle of the stage.  Fortunately he 
got off in one piece, but I hope the bouncers gave him a couple on the way 
out the door.

I'm not going to try to pick out highlights, because every song was a 
highlight.  For someone whose introduction to the Oils (and rock in 
general) was the Red Sails In The Sunset album in 1984 (followed shortly 
afterwards by the Goat Island video) it was a dream come true to get songs 
like Jimmy Sharman's, Kosciusko and half of the 10-1 album.  Only needed 
When The Generals Talk to achieve perfection!

Speaking of Kosciusko, here's the answer to recent questions.  It does 
appear that Rob isn't up to singing it any more but it's obviously one that 
gets requested a lot, so they've split the vocal duties between Rob, Pete 
and Bones as follows:

All - Older than Kosciusko
Pete and Rob - Darwin down to Alice Springs
Pete and Bones - Dealers in the clearing house the settlements explode
(other verses done the same way)
Pete and Bones - No end to the hostility...
Pete - Call off the ultimatum...
Rob - Bind up the broken hearted... (last time - high part)
All - No end to the hostility... to end.

Hope that clears up everyone's questions on that issue!

Once again Bones handed over the bass to Pete for the end of Dead 
Heart.  (Bones then joined Rob on the drums for that bit.)

I'd love a tape of this show, but on past experience in Perth I think it's 
probably reasonable to assume that if I wasn't taping it then nobody else 
was either!  (I wasn't)

That's about it I guess, except to say that anyone who thinks Rob isn't a 
great drummer really needs to come and watch him do Power and the Passion 
live rather than base their judgement on the Oil Drums notation book.

And no, I didn't get any info on the Euro tour, sorry.



jeff...