Monday, October 1, 2007

Colin at Work

Sorry I didn't post this before now, but I've been so busy...

So, I went to see Colin Hay in Louisville last Tuesday, and let me just say that it was a great show. He was funny, charismatic, and I can't forget that the music was great.

He came out alone and sang the wonderful song "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You." If you have seen the movie "Garden State" or have the movie soundtrack, then you've heard this song before.



He then sang one other song alone, "Maggie" from his album "Going Somewhere."

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Then his band joined him and they played a 2-hour set of songs from his solo albums and songs from his days with Men At Work.

Including a great song called "Are You Lookin' at Me?" from his album of the same name.

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Before the band got going, Colin said, "Back in the '80s I was part of a band, and we'll play some songs from then tonight. And after that band broke up, I have recorded a few solo albums, so we'll play some of those songs, too. So, that's just about it. No surprises. Nobody will be joining us on stage. That's it."

Someone in the crowd yelled, "What, no Wang Chung???" Colin laughed and said, "No. Now that'd be a big fucking surprise wouldn't it?"

In between songs he went on to tell a number of stories. He talked about how he'd like to do something with Bob Dylan sometime. He said he didn't mean record a song or anything. He thought it would be cool to got shopping at Costco with him, maybe buy some toilet paper. He talked about how a couple of his band members went to The Guitar Center in Alabama looking for kazoos, and the store employees thought they were mad despite the fact that is an instrument store and a kazoo is an instrument. He said he planned to open a store called The Kazoo Center and just below the word Kazoo he would have the word Guitar, which would be X'ed out. He talked about how he played in Ringo Starr's band once and wrote a song for Ringo. He said that Ringo never said anything about the song and he didn't feel it was his place to ask someone of the magnitude of Ringo Starr about it. So, he continued, when he left that band and was ready to record an album, he decided to just record it himself.

It was a great show. Like I said, they played for 2 straight hours, playing a lot of good stuff. Many of you might not know his solo stuff (other than the song listed above), but you might recognize the following three songs he played from his Men At Work days.








Colin is a great singer/songwriter, and there are so very few goods ones nowadays. If you ever get a chance, you should check out his work. I don't think those of you who appreciate quality songs over the Pop/Hip-Hop stuff out there now, you won't be disappointed.

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