Flashback show today! This was one of the greatest gig ever so just have to write about this Monday morning because I’ve been reading some reviews of his latest tour and wish he’ll come back to Australia sometime soon. I’ve got to reload my CD player with his last five albums first before starting, OK? It’s now Jesu/Sun Kil Moon, Universal Themes, Benji, Perils From The Sea and Among The Leaves while I write this.
The first was an email earlier that day, I remember reading it and it saying don’t be late Sun Kil Moon are on at 8:30 and no support band. If I wasn’t hyped by that time I was even more after reading that. They/he got some really bad reviews at the time but it was like we were at different show or something but it was around the time of all that bad press he was getting so I guess the Aussie journos jumped on that bandwagon. I remember it as a totally amazing gig so here’s what happened next, well it’s how I remember it so that the same thing or not?
Mark, a drummer and keyboard player was not joking about the time in the email, only could buy Sings Christmas Carols, Like Rats and beer then they were was on. Starting the show unlike no one ever begins, I should point out this was at the end of March and the heat that night was was still like the middle of summer day here. He saying into his mic “Please turn those fans and air cons off! I’m not starting until I can hear myself!” and he wasn’t joking about that too, egged on the staff of the venue to stop them quickly or he’s going home or something. In summer Australia you never turn these thing offs but his point was very right because after you could hear a pin drop, it shut everyone up too but I think maybe all the crowd were in shock, heard after some people left because it too hot. The humming finally stopped and Mark was happy “I can hear myself talk now, that shit always to loud” or something like that. At some point in a very long opening statement intro he was saying he got to see Bon Scott grave today and maybe at the end of the night he’ll play a AC/DC cover from What Is Next To The Moon but he never did that. It really didn’t matter because it was an unbelievable setlist.
Opening the show with Mariette, the opening song off the Desertshore album then the cover of Send In The Clowns then he talked with the crowd and then start to tell a story about eating out in Australia and how he wrote it into new/old song maybe it’s just never been recorded about Aussie chain restaurant Nando’s Chicken and the teenage Asian waitress he was trying impressed but she didn’t give a fuck about him or his band, touring with his girlfriend and how she caught him checking out Holly Throsby‘s butt. It was so funny and then he did his other funny song War On Drugs: Suck My Cock. After these tracks and half an hour into the show he picked up his guitar for the first time for Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes and I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love. Another new song The Possum which did come out a bit later on Universal Themes he also played Ali/Spinks 2 too after I Watched the Film The Song Remains The Same and Dogs.
He/they played a few more songs from Benji being it was the latest album at the time, almost playing the whole thing minus only two tracks. Another funny moment happened when he asked up to the stage two sisters to sing Sonny & Cher’s I Got You Babe, taking it in turns to sing and everything was going great the first sister could really sing and Mark was impressed then the mic got pass to the second more drunk sister who didn’t even try to sing but made humming oh’s or something, just taking the piss out of the song and then afterwards told Mark he’s the most heterosexual man she ever meet! At some point someone ask for an old Red House Painters song Bubble and he told them to “fuck off and get out!” and something about he’s not playing songs that are 20/15 years old but did take a request for Pancho Villa from Ghosts of the Great Highway but then couldn’t remember how to play it and take a few minutes talking with his band then someone else in the crowds had google his own lyrics so he could sing it too.
The stage set up at the time Mark had a couple of drums which he bang along with sometimes, played his acoustic guitar only sometimes too anyway he asked another person from the crowd to play the drum but then she couldn’t keep a beat so he asked this guy who looks like boxer he likes up then, who was the venue’s security bloke, that was pretty funny too. Then at the end of the night he asked again, this time she was a music school teacher who’s dad was the almost the same age as Mark so he felt really old but she was great he asked the crowd if she stay on stage for the last song so she played two tracks with them, Ceiling Gazing and He Always Felt Like Dancing from Perils From The Sea album. Some reviewers say he’s just so unfriendly but I’ve never been to a show where it was so interactive, off course he told someone to fuck off and told the venue to shut down the fans and air-cons but he talked with the crowd so much more than anyone else I’ve ever seen also singing and playing with them on stage too. The gig was a bit over three hours long so it was like running a marathon too but it was just so great. One of the best gigs in the last two years maybe even my whole life. The Bakery was closing down at the time, I’ve been some killer show there so this was a wicked final show too!
Sun Kil Moon setlist 25/3/15:
Mariette
Send In The Clowns
Nando’s Chicken
War On Drugs: Suck My Cock
Richard Ramirez Died Today Of Natural Causes
I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love
The Possum
I Watched the Film The Song Remains The Same
Dogs
Ali/Spinks 2
Carissa
I Got You Babe
Micheline
Caroline
Truck Driver
Jim Wise
Pancho Villa
Ceiling Gazing
He Always Felt Like Dancing
a1000mistakes 
I guess ‘I Got You Babe’ is the duet song he likes to do. Sounds like he hasn’t changed much, despite the negative press he was getting not so longer ago!
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