Brisbane, Australia, Thursday, 20 Feb 1997

First of all thanks to Shane for the marvellous transcriptions. I couldn't get to met any listmembers at last nights gig due to my arrival time & having to leave as soon as it finished.

The only RT Shirt (band tour) I saw was beside me and he was taping the show on a Sony DAT. Naughty man.

The show was in a small theatre about 20 seats across, maybe 40 deep plus a balcony. I was surprised no one was searched for DATs & cameras on the way in as they were in evidence during the concert.

Anyway scheduled start 7:30, actually started somewhat later by surprise guest Margaret Roadknight. She is an Australian blues/jazz bit of everything type singer.

After she finished Louden came on and soon had most of the audience enjoying his show. He did a mix of amusing songs (including on about the Hubble Telescope & one about thinking you are a young man but looking like shit in the mirror) and some serious ones about parenthood. As a Louden newbie I was impressed by his performance. My only complaint was he went a little long while I was chafing to see RT.

RT set List, started around 9:30? (any errors are because I havn't had time to check correct song titles from my CD's)

RT & DT.......

Easy There, Steady now
Hide It Away
Waltzings for Dreamers
I Feel So Good
Ghost Of You Walks
Dog Eat Dog in Denmark
Al Bowly (complete with DT Bass solo)

DT left the stage, RT solo.........

Vincent Black Lightening
Cold Kisses (reading Jeffery Archer mystery)
Down Where The Drunkards Roll
(complete with sometimes reluctant audience chorus)
I want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

RT & DT back (DT earlier? can't remember)

I Misunderstood
Jimmy Shands (with audience singalong, once again a bit reluctant)
Lottery Land
Turning of The Tide
Ghosts in the Wind? (Stunning bass work from Danny)
2 Left Feet

Short break, Encore with Louden W joining them, 11:05 pm
The next song names are guesses:
Smokey Joes Cafe (credited to The Robins/Coasters) - sounded like RT was playing the blues to me
The End of A Long Lonely Day (Marty Robins) - RT does Country & Western!! - Must be his revenge on all the C&W covers of his songs. He did it very well (for C&W) - Some people did not like it.

All left stage, RT & DT returned for another encore:
Wall of Death

DT left stage, RT solo
Dimming of The Day

The end, around 11:30 pm:

RT was quite funny & seemed to be enjoying himself. He made a few informed local comments (& started Easy There, Steady Now playing an australian tune intro). Told a tale about Steve Vai going to a New Zealand gig from Australia and thinking it was part of Oz, totally offending his audience resulting in initial silence from them.

For the clothes fetish types, dressed in Black shirt & pants, black & white patterned vest with black satin black, Dark beret (dark green?) with a badge on the forehead, and brown boots (bit hard to see them clearly). I don't think I have ever heard him sing so clearly before, even the RT newbies probably understood most of the lyrics. I was about 6 rows back so had a great clear view of him & DT (all dressed in black).

DT was also in fine form heckling the audience when they made requests he didn't like. They knocked back a few requests (Crazy Man Micheal etc) as too hard. Did some stunningly different versions of a lot of the songs including RT at times mixing solos & breaks from other songs into the middle. The DT bass work on Ghosts In The Wind (in particular) was stunning.

All in all a great performance, so great to finally see him in Brisbane (or Lisbourne as he kept calling it to stir people up).

Max.