Oils Gig Review

Narrabeen Sands - 4th Dec 96

Hi, well now that I have finished all my stuff I thought I would write about the Narrabeen gig. My friend and I got there at about 6pm cause I came straight from work and there was no point going home and coming back again. Well I went in and had a look around, and guess who walked past! Peter Garrett! I was so shocked all I could say was Hi, and he said hi back. Then I could hear Underwater so we went into the bar and there they all were for the sound check! There were probably about 10 other people in the room apart from the millions of roadies running around. I saw someone I had meet before at a concert and she said that just before I came they were playing Koala Sprint. They ran through a couple of songs. It was really loud! After we waited around till 7.15pm when they kicked us out only to let us back in at 7.30pm. Unfortunately I told them I had a ticket. A couple of other guys who were watching said they didn't have one and they got in for free! The bouncers were really stupid!

Ticket scalpers were there. Talked to a few guys who paid $100 a ticket! Apparently there were 700 tickets on sale and 300 for guests. Read into that what you like :)

At about 8.45pm the Oils just came on. No support band, as soon as the lights dimmed they came on. Started with a awesome version of Progress! And didn't really stop till they went off stage. Crowd was so loud that I didn't hear anything Pete said all night! Haven't heard the tape yet so I have no idea if that came across. The crowd was Ok, had lots of friends near me. But as usual there were a few idiots around. One of my friends fainted, the other (my driver! :) ) nearly did. But that actually turned out to be quite good(I'll say why later).

They had a clock on stage and i think this was so they could time everything properly for JJJ. I think they should have just given the Oils a bit of slack as far as the time went. Peter was "dancing" as well as I have ever seen him. He even was playing the keyboards during the guitar solo in one song, though not very successfully as far as I am concerned! :) He was using his elbows and forearms.

Came on for a three song encore, but unfortunately only one. My friend who was driving looked as if she was about to die, so we decided to hang around for awhile. Couldn't get in back stage so we thought we would wait outside for a while. After dodging police cars and bouncers who kept telling us to "move out of the car park", they started to come out.

I felt kind of bad asking them to sign my set list cause I reckon all they wanted to do was go home! But they were all really nice. We had a long chat with Martin. I asked him about his switch of amps (he was using Marshalls again) and he said he was really happy because he could finally hear himself play. I also asked about his earring, but he just laughed and said nothing. Peter was also really nice and told me the reasons he drives a Volvo! Totally amazing night!

Kristi Barrow