Kicking off the day was Bachelor Girl. This is the first tour for Bachelor Girl since reforming last year. They opened up the day with “Blown Away”, followed on by “Permission To Shine”. Bachelor Girl are working on a new album which will hopefully be released next year. They made this announcement as they smashed into new song “Calling Out Your Name”. The energy Tania had on stage was amazing, considering she is from Stockholm where it is cold six months of the year. She made jokes about how hot it is here in Queensland, and she thought that it looks like she’s crying because of all the sweat coming down her face. Tania made a shout out to all the girls working on the tour before playing everyone’s favorite, “I’m just a girl”. Tania had the crowd in her hands right from the moment she stepped out on stage. Bachelor Girl played a great mixture of old and new songs, finishing off their fun set with “Lucky Me”. I certainly can’t wait to hear more of the new tracks from these guys!
Next on the bill was Australian icon Russell Morris opening his set with “Black Dog Blues” followed on by “Wings Of An Eagle” which was in the soundtrack to the movie “The Dish”, before belting out a classic he did with Molly Meldrum in the 60’s “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”. Russell was full of tongue in cheek humor on stage. His performance was a great mixture of newer blues songs and old songs he did a lifetime ago. The one song everyone was eager to hear was of course “The Real Thing”. When Russell started this song, he had the whole crowd up and dancing before ending his performance with “Sweet Sweet Love”. If you haven’t seen Russell live before, in the words of Molly Meldrum “do yourself a favor!”
Richard Marx was next up on this hot bill opening up his performance with “Endless Summer Nights”. Taking a minute to sip on his martini before getting into “Take This Heart”. The big smile on Richard’s face from the minute he entered the stage he takes to the crowd telling them how he is thrilled to be here at “A Day on the Sauce” as he has renamed “A Day On The Green”. He then goes on to tell the crowd how he first met John Farnham 25 years ago, back when he had the most awesome fluffy mullet – better than John Farnhams! Richard then plays classics such as “Angelia” and “Hazard”.
It turns out Richard Marx is mates with Keith Urban and they have co-written songs together.
“If you are going to name drop, Keith Urban is the name you use!” says Richard. He then introduces the next song “Long Hot Summer” and finishing off his set with his most famous song “Right Here Waiting”. From the look and cheerfulness coming from Richard throughout his set, you could tell he was soaking in the atmosphere of the day having a blast on stage. If you get the chance to see Richard Marx on this tour, make sure you get along because I can promise you, you won’t be dissappointed!
As the sun is setting and its starting to get a little cooler it’s time for another great Aussie icon to hit the stage Daryl Braithwaite comes out hard with “All I Do”. . I personally have seen Daryl 4 times in the past year and there is always that one person who yells out “Play Horses” as soon as Daryl walks on stage, Daryl giggles as it’s yelled at him and replies with “To the man calling out for Horses, we all know it’s a bit premature!”Daryl gives us a mixture of songs from his old days in Sherbert such as “Blueswalkin’”, “Summer Love” and “Howzat” along with some of his solo songs such as “Beautiful”, “Not Too Late”, “As Days Go By”, “One Summer”. He is full of jokes tonight, looks at the clock and jokes “well there’s only two & half minutes left, we might say good bye now” stirring the crowd up before he ends his set with the only song possible to finish a Daryl Braithwaite set “Horses”. Even though I have seen Daryl so many times this year, I really loved his attitude on stage tonight, he really was having a great time!
Last but not least is the man we’ve all been waiting for, John Farnham. He storms the stage belting out Queen classic “We Will Rock You”. As soon as he came out singing this I was overcome with pure joy. This was my first time seeing John Farnham so I am not sure if he does this song all the time or if he chose to do it because of the hype Queen is getting at the moment with the movie “Bohemian Rhapsody”. But either way, it was a brilliant way to start his set as he had the crowd in his hands from the second he entered the stage!
He belts out classics right from the start with “Hearts On Fire”, “Age Of Reason” and one song he did with Human Nature “Everytime You Cry”. With the whole crowd already up on their feet dancing it was time to start playing some songs from his most successful album, “Whispering Jack”.
We were in for a treat tonight with John performing:
“Reasons”,
“No One Comes Close”,
“Love to Shine”,
“One Step Away”,
“Trouble”,
“A Touch of Paradise”
“Pressure down”
The crowd loved every minute of this. John didn’t talk much throughout his performance as it was clear he wanted to give the audience what they wanted. We saw a sensational performance with hit after hit. He had no time for banter as there were too many songs to sing!
John finished off his performance with “The Voice” – complete with a bagpipe! We all knew that wouldn’t be the end, he would come back for an encore. He triumphantly returned to the stage.
“You smooth talking buggers!”, he roared as he stared down his audience, awaiting his every command. He then belts his final song, “Long Way to the Top”, an Australian classic. I was absolutely blown away by this performance. I finally got to witness a true Aussie Icon live. His voice truly is phenomenal. Can you even be considered an Australian if you haven’t seen John Farnham live?!
Afterthought:
My first “A Day On The Green” was sensational! Despite the 40-degree heat, you walk into this type of venue and you just soak up the atmosphere and forget what the weather is doing. You are there to see live music and have a blast!
I did want to make mention on how well set up Sirromet Winery is for this type of event. Getting through the gates was very efficient, and once on the other side there are staff or volunteers eagerly handing out free garbage bags to every person that enters. This is such an excellent idea as there is never enough bins around at these types of venues. Since everyone is sitting, they can now just bag up all their rubbish in a garbage bag, and leave it for the cleaners. Now there will no longer be thousands of empty cans and bottles spread throughout the grounds. Well done to Sirromet Winery on their organization of this event!
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