Dubbo, Dec. 5, 1997

By MATT BAKER, GUITARIST FOR THE SUPPORT BAND, DROWN

Dubbo certainly got a nice little shock out of it's conservative doldrums last night, I can assure you!!! Drown took to the stage at 7p.m. and from the start had an enthused crowd, no doubt lead by most of our mates! (tribute to Robert Armstrong...) This was certainly going to be one of the best gigs of our life thus far.

Much cheering and guitar abusing later (I'm not going to apologize!!) Magic Dirt ascended the treacherous stairs to the stage, and proceeded to rock out in fine form, with Adalita (??) appearing to injure herself at the close of their set, and was helped off stage. Authentic or no, it still kept the Dubbo youth highly entertained.

And then... The lights dropped a bit-the crowd screamed. John Watson walked across the stage- the crowd screamed. A roadie attempted a simple rock beat on Gillies' drum kit, and you guessed it- they all screamed. This was one pumped up crowd, who had probably been waiting for an experience like this since they were just lust in ether. Dubbo needed this gig- to prove to the dogmatic, conservative politicians and community leaders that the youth of this town craves culture.

And they all went off!!! Band and audience alike. Daniel was in fine form, although whenever he spoke, the acoustics of the "world's largest garage" didn't aid in comprehension. (Just picture a giant half barrel shape made out of corrugated iron, and there you have Hangar Four.)

I think the kids were in shock when Gillies' tom and roto-toms were moved to centre stage for the Itchee and Scratchee remix of Freak. The thought the band was going to leave!!! Not so, with Daniel climbing speaker stacks and jumping around like a man possessed (which perhaps he is with the inevitable frustrations of the tour.)

And after all this and an encore of israel's son, pretty much a standard crownd pleaser, they walked out the back, into their waiting Torago chauffered by Mr Watson (I presume...) to, and I quote, "go and get some sleep," hopefully to leave them fighting fit for the gig at the Hordern tonight. What a gig!!!