Colin Hay at Kirk Avenue Music Hall, Roanoke VA

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:22:18 +0000

Sat 26 Sep – Colin Hay

I'd never been to Kirk Avenue before, and I was surprised from the start at the size of the venue. The placed filled up just before Colin hit the stage with probably less than 200 people total. From the fourth row he was clearly audible even when he stepped away from his microphone. It felt personal, it felt intimate and real, and his manner with the audience helped perpetuate that feeling of closeness.

Colin Hay took the stage and immediately started goofing with the crowd, telling stories of life on the road, of moving to Australia as a child and finally settling in California. He started with Oh California, and then played a few more songs from his newest album American Sunshine.

He played the crowd favorites Who Can It Be Now, Maggie, Down Under, and I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You, and finished with Overkill, which he performed as an anti-encore. As Colin explained - "there's no point in me walking back there, and you waiting up here, and then coming back. There's nothing back there. Well, there's trailmix. And bananas. But that's 20 minutes. If you add that up that's years off your life." Luckily, someone on the front row recorded the encore and a brief comic introduction.

I was laughing so hard that tears were coming to my eyes during his dialogues, and then fighting the tears for entirely different reasons during a few songs.

another_britt's Last.fm Journal

Colin Hay at Kirk Avenue Music Hall, Roanoke VA