Tivoli, Brisbane

Review

Thanks to Tara in the forums.

The show.. I don't even know where to start. I'm going to write as though everyone who reads this knows all of their songs, since a lot of you (or the ones who care enough to read this, anyway) are big Empire fans, anyhow. So, sorry for those of you who don't know what I'm on about!

Loz and I got our standard spot against the stage at the far left side, which has a great view across the stage, and for some reason no one ever goes there? While the rest of the room is packed, we always get a relatively nice amount of space, in the first row, go figure. Anyway!

I can't remember the order of the songs, but they played for over 2 hours, and it was all absolutely amazing; everyone needs to move to Australia and see these guys live as often as they can. I love their CDs, and the new one is great, but oh god, they are a live band. So very much. They played their new intro first (not as fabulous as the old intro, but still catchy and fun and danceable), and then got straight down to business with Hello. The rest of the night included Days Like These, The Chariot, The Rhythm, Wine Song, Sly, In My Pocket, Lullaby, Car Song, Two Shoes, Miserere, Party Started, Night That Never End, and also covered Respect and Dumb Things. It was actually the most perfect show I've ever been to in my life.

They also brought on the Space Cowboy again!! NOTHING could be more perfect than the hottest sword-swallower in the universe fellating and then swallowing two swords, on stage with the Cat fucking Empire. He is so very pretty, and.. nn! Perfect! Other guests included the Empire dancers, some random violinist and celloist, and Kate Cebrano, who is actually fantastic and amazing? Oh, and some guy who came dancing on from backstage, causing Jumps to have a tantrum and shove him off stage in a temper, eheh.

Felix introduced Sol Y Sombra as, 'Ollie wrote most of this song'. This amuses me endlessly, as it's got, what, three lines? What part didn't he write? He was absolutely incredible for this, though, his solo seriously went for about ten or fifteen minutes. The rest of the band kept going to start playing, and Ollie was like 'fuck no I'm not done', and they all just stood back and watched as he did his thing. Harry went over a couple of times and said something to him, but he was completely ignored. It was incredible. For the record, Ollie drank an entire bottle of wine through the set, and at the end waited for the rest of the band to leave the stage before shuffling into the middle and bowing solemnly, clutching his bottle and glass, and shuffled out slowly.

Everyone had amazing solos as always, but Ryan's was the other highlight of the night. I think it was during the Chariot, and it was unbelievable. Everyone started cheering him, but he just shook his head and put a finger to his lips in a 'shhh' motion, and kept playing, so fucking loud and deep, you didn't so much hear it as feel it. God those guys are incredible.

They finished about ten minutes into the morning of the new CD's launch. I could keep typing about how amazing they were forever, but I've already overused the words 'amazing', 'incredible', and 'fantastic', so I'd just be redundant. Have a look at the autographed polaroids I took today, instead.