(diaryland) November 18, 2000 - 14:51:55

Last night, I saw a good concert, and it was not Sting. Sting was playing next door, at the Palais. I was at the Palace. It's different, see. I saw Fantomas.

The concert was rather severely overshadowed by the way it took me at least three hours to get home, including over an hour of walking and waiting two hours for a ten-minute bus ride in Prostitute Country. Most of the prostitutes were pretty.

Anyway, about the concert. I didn't know anyone there, but before the show I made fast friends with a midget and a tall dude from Bendigo. Well, I lie. He wasn't a midget. He was just incredibly short. I'm sorry, midget, if I hurt your feelings, but you were cool. He was a Melvins fan.

The support act was a man named Tim Tim, a disillusioned magician with a tank top bearing the image of Mickey Mouse. He blew up long balloons and predictably made them into penises. He eventually won the crowd over with his shitty magic tricks. He was markedly better than the last support act I saw at the Palace, which was Neil Hamburger, though he's supposed to be really bad. That's his point.

After ten bazillion years of waiting, stuff happened. The shock-haired living legend guitarist Buzz (as he is known to millions of adoring fans) came out and twiddled some knobs and stuff. Then out came the drummer, David, well known for his work with Slayer and overly long-winded drum solos on other things. But tonight, he had an overly large gong instead. Then out came the bassist, Trevor, and the singer and keyboard dude Michael.

I have seen the singer, Michael, on two other occasions in two other bands, namely Faith No More and Mr. Bungle. I am a big fan of this dude. I am a REALLY BIG FAN of this dude. Yeah. He sings nice and looks nice. Maybe I think he's my number one spunky guy because there's something about his appearance that reminds me of my Mum. I'm not quite sure what it is. Perhaps it's the way they both look worried whilst yelling loudly. Perhaps it's because they've got the same kind of wedding ring. I don't know. But sometimes, he reminds me of my Mum. Everyone wants to marry their mum, apparently. Someone said that once.

Anyway, forgive my waffling on. Anyway, as I was saying, Michael is nice. They started with a song that sounded like it was just made up then but of course wasn't. Then they played their entire first album. For those of you who haven't heard Fantomas, it sounds like a bunch of things that usually isn't music. I was surprised because they played just like they do on record. How the hell do they remember all that? It's like all really tightly controlled, yet improvisey. I don't know.

I think, some of the time, they sound like the Boredoms. But I get this vibe (I've never seen the Boredoms live, though) that the Boredoms couldn't possibly play all the crazy shit they do on their albums live. Maybe I'm wrong. But Fantomas played the whole album of theirs perfectly, with some interesting things in between. One aside was this loungey song thing they spontaneously broke into whilst Buzz fucked around with a wah pedal. Buzz is well-known for pioneering the drop D tuning on the guitar, but who the hell knows what tuning he was in tonight? He was in wonderfully fine form (musically, and from a hairstyle point of view, I mean). During this lovely touching lounge song thingy, someone yelled out, "Cheesy bastard!" and it was true.

The messages their songs have are very deep and meaningful and political. Some of the best, most resonant lyrics were, "Tssssssssssss", "TEKTEKtektekTEKTEK", and the best of all, "DiddlyOOMPAH!!!"

So they finished up and then did that thing where they say goodbye but really don't go and then they come back out and then they played this really cool song I was hoping they'd play that I have on MP3. It's fucking catchy, I must say. And that was it. Naked abandon was had by all. There were many Sting jokes and part of the evening involved a badly tattooed guy, but I won't go into that. As per usual, everyone there wanted to get into Michael's pants, but he was wearing pants of a size that would fit only him, so no-one got to. My only other complaint was that Buzz didn't say or sing anything. I just wanted Buzz to say, "Hi." Is that too much to ask?

So then began my nightmare trek through Prostitute Country in the dead of night. I got a lot of exercise. When I grow up, I would like to be Fantomas.

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