I went to see the Cat Empire at the Metro last night. The venue was a favourite in my uni days and that alone made it a pleasure to be there. But the Cat Empire were everything that a live performance should be – a bunch of blokes (it doesn’t have to be blokes, but in this case it was) getting up on stage and having fun playing music. As well as the usual rock elements, they included 3 brass instruments and the two lead singers, each with their own unique style, would play percussion and trumpet respectively. They loved to try new things so the concert was a feast of new sounds. They suffered from the usual speaker distortion that afflicts most live bands, who seem to believe that volume equals atmosphere, but I could deal with that.
The most impressive thing about the night, though, was that it was totally smoke free. I’d had the same pleasant experience at a pub quiz night earlier in the week, and neither of these experiences are unusual in Sydney now. Smoking has become such an unfashionable habit that smoking is now banned in all public places. And this is enforced, unlike the law in Bhutan that friends of the bar’s owner feel exempt from. Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi!