Oils Gig Reviews

Waves, Wollongong, January 1998

Hitting the road nice and early to the Gong (the second of Australia's 'steel cities', whose persona can be most accurately described by pointing out that Newcastle, Wollongong's cousin city, spawned Silverchair), our deeply-held expectations of the club came to fruition. The Decor consisted of paper mache and foam fluro fish, disco lights steel dancing cages- what more do we have to say??

Before the ever improving Skunkhour hit the stage, we were treated to the best that button-pushing techno has to offer; Jim Moginie would be proud. Skunkhour came on a played a great, full on set: for all of you who have heard the tune 'Weightlessness', you will know what I mean. Our enjoyment levels soon plunged earthwards again, however, as the disco lights and tv sets came back on to pump the crowd into unprecedented fits of depression. However, Kylie - ever the ancient amongst us - revelled in the flashback to her formative years as Australian Crawl, Cold Chisel(which was before my time) and INXS kept her in a rocking mood (aided by the odd berocca to keep that b-b-bounce - understandably, we will never be letting her anywhere near hard drugs).

Unfortunately for us, nevertheless, was that this very classic Aus Pub music blaring out of the speakers resulted in the crowd being deprived of the luscious, beautiful sounds of the soundcheck performed by the Oil's engineer (which is always the unchallenged highlight of any night). "Hey, Hey, Hey, Yeah, Hey Yeah, 2 ,2 Honk!"- I wouldn't mind owning the rights to _that_ anthem.

Anyway, the guys entered stage left to the usual roar of the crowd, accompanied this time by the unwelcome surging forward of everyone not in the very front row, a phenomena which was fortunately absent from the last two gigs! All good things must come to an end, I suppose. I (Sandy) was maliciously pinched in the back a few times by some pathetic life form, and Kylie was threatened to have her head punched off and dumped in a bucked of water by a bloke trying to muscle into the front row. The guy's plan was immediately foiled - fortunately for Kylie - by the bouncer deciding to dump the bucket of water on my (Sandy's) head. I almost bloody drowned!

Despite the crowd, however, the show was a most enjoyable one indeed, with songs such as Surfing With A Spoon, Sins of Omission and Somebody's Trying to Tell Me Something giving us regulars a refreshing change to the standard big hits.

Power and the Passion was big! Really big! Jim's new toy erupted in all it's glory to the amusement of the band and audience, and the relief of Jim. Straight after the drum solo a broken techno beat boomed out of the speakers. It was faster than the old one, and caused Pete a bit of trouble trying to fit the verse in.

During the Dead Heart, Bones got an itchy nose and pulled some great faces as he tried to relieve it. Eventually he gave into temptation and wiped his nose on the microphone.

The highlight of my night (Krusty) was the ham and cheese (that was it - just cheese wrapped in ham) that Bones gave me after the encore! Luckily though, the loser next to me grabbed it before I could get it - just what possesses idiots to just reach out for anything is beyond me.You should have seen the puzzled (and disgusted) look on his face when he realised he was holding a lump of cheese! Actually it wasn't much different to the stoned expression he had been wearing all night, come to think of it.

The highlight of the trip home was the blurred vision being experienced by Sandy - as the driver, this was really not a good thing - and the sudden craving for chocolate milk by Miss Fries (I was desperate!). Needless to say, the former ailment induced a barrage of 'which cereal packet did you get your license from' when the reverse park took a little longer than normal. Heartless, I reckon.

Set List:
Wheel - Koala Sprint
Power and the Passion (an yes it was big!- an absolute marvel of technology)
Wheel - Only the Strong
Wheel - Cold Cold Change
Somebody's Trying to Tell me Something
Earthbeat
Wheel - Read About It
One Country
Back on the Borderline
Wheel - Surfing with a Spoon
Wheel- Warakurna
Wheel- Sins of Omission
My Country
Forgotten Years
Don't Wanna be the One

Dead Heart
Blue Sky Mine

Dreamworld