Eric Bogle, New Farm Powerhouse

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We were really excited to see Eric Bogle (born 1944) at the Brisbane Powerhouse here in New Farm, QLD with our friends Ross and Bev. It was a full house in a smallish concert hall. 

Eric had a small backing group — violin (Emma Luker), percussion (Jon Jones) and guitar (Peter Titchener) — that accented the music perfectly. It was a great low key show with lots of stories between songs over two long sets (7:30-10:00). He sang many of our favorites and I'm not ashamed to say he brought us to tears. We've learned his long time writing and playing companion John Munro (1947 - 2018) had died here in Brisbane some 6 years ago. As the song goes, "There must be a reason for it all ..." (from "Scraps of Paper" 1981).

We were first introduced to Eric Bogle's music through our friend Mike. I think he showed us "The Green Fields of France" (aka "No Man's Land") in a version by the Irish band the Fureys. This would have been back in the very early 1980's. Soon after we discovered his music again through the Pogues and their version of "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" from "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" (1985). We have been lucky enough to see him at the Horseshoe Tavern (Toronto, ON), the Roxy Theatre (Owen Sound, ON) and the University of Western Australia (Perth, WA) over these many years. We are especially lucky to see him today.

The Powerhouse is an old industrial building on the shore of the river not too far from our AirBnB. If we were anyone else we might have walked, instead we took a Uber. There are some pictures of the New Farm parkland where the Powerhouse is located in another blog entry. One reason for taking an Uber — there's a street party event in nearby Teneriffe so parking is at a premium. We meet Ross and Bev for dinner at the Italian restaurant, Bar Alto, in the Powerhouse before the show and got a ride home with them. We might have eaten outside on the riverside patio but it's dark and cool out.

An interesting story .... I had my camera and was taking pictures from our seats during the show. After a bit I got up to get a bit closer to the stage from the one side and to get some close up pictures. I was doing ok when one of the ushers came up to me and told me not to do take pictures during the songs — the clatter of the DSLR mirror slap was distracting. That's a first but I suppose it might have been worse for me as there was a sign up at the entrance saying "No Photography!".

To round out our collection of Eric Bogle music we bought a couple of CD's we don't have: "The Source of Light" (2008) and "Voices (with John Munro)" (2018). He sang songs from from his lengthy catalogue including, of course, "Waltzing Matilda" and "No Man's Land". "A Reason for It All" was originally a duet with John Munro singing the high voice. When he passed away Eric had stopped doing that sone. Fortunately the woman on violin (Emma Luker), who plays and tours with him, convinced him to let her give it a try. She plays an excellent replacement role, perhaps even better than John Munro's part.

If you're a fan of music with a story, music that tugs on your heart strings, simple tunes with a powerful message we would encourage you to investigate Eric Bogle. Some music is timeless.