Phoenix Foundation = Fantastic

I have done well: I've seen the Phoenix Foundation twice this weekend. I saw them last night at a very full Arc. Anji Sami was not available to play in support, so they decided to do an extended set, which involved a fair amount of goofing around, such as a version of Purple Rain where Luke found it necessary to call out chord changes to his band members, and then to chastise the audience when only seven confessed to having seen it. Meanwhile Sam is holding his finger up to his lips and going "shhh" to us - not sure it worked.

So, the band was in absolutely fine form, playing longer versions of some of their songs - I'm pretty sure they were on stage for a couple of hours: as they said when they had 'finished" and we demanded an encore, they had nowhere to go.

Their gig at the Oamaru Wine Festival was a bit more low key: the dancers were noticeable by their absence. I have to say that with only a handful of people up in the hot sun, and a large group of people lounging around watching, I didn't feel inclined to get up. It was quite nice, sitting on a park bench, drinking a cold beer and eating mussels wrapped in bacon on a skewer.

The other activity they had going on was a town crier competition - the woman dancing can also be seen in the photo below (seated): she was the ultimate winner, despite not actually doing any town crying: she instead chose to recite a long and rambling poem involving a pirate princess. Standing beside her is local Oamaru arts icon, Donna DeMente: