Caught an interesting live band at the Docklands this Sunday night just past... at a place called the Lounge Room - a group by the (quirky) name of "Doctor Elephant".
The Lounge Room 
is situated on the river terrace at the New Quay side of Docklands (not far from the Meccah bah) The Lounge Room is a warm, lively, modern bar with a very welcoming feel. Earlier in the evening we had noticed live music coming from the Lounge Room as we walked past on our way to the Meccah bah. So, after polishing off another great feed of Morrocan mezze, Kylie and I decided to check out the band at the Lounge Room. We walked in, sat down on one of the modern brown velour covered lounges and immediately began to enjoy the music. The band consisted of a lead/rhythm guitar, bass and lead singer although we understand that the band has a drummer as well, who was not in attendance last night. The band essentially played a range of cover songs including a very fine rendition of "Cat's in the Cradle". It was very obvious that the band members were very talented musicians - both the bass player and the guitarist/singer were well above average in terms of mastery of their instruments. 
What was also very pleasing was the quality of the sound from the PA system- not too loud, very well mixed, excellent definition of instrument and voice production, clear crisp rendition - absolutely excellent - so often I go to listen to live music and the combination of poor mixing and complete incompetence with the sound system ensures that it is impossible to tell if the band is any good or not. I have very rarely heard a group produced so well in such a small intimate live setting. Well done to whoever mixed the sound!
The highlight of the evening was the finale - the best rendition of that old classic "Stand By Me" -the lead singer Damien 
is just an amazing talent and his performance of this song was nothing short of incredible.
Damien has an amazing voice, perfect pitch, unbelievable range (as any singer knows, "Stand By Me" is a song that separates the "men from the boys" metaphorically speaking). And then, just when I thought Damien's singing is as good as it gets, he started improvising during the instrumental break of the song and just took his performance to an even higher level.
The band will be performing again this coming Sunday 28th November at the Lounge Room (from 5pm to 9pm I think)- they are really not to be missed and I will certainly be back there to enjoy their performance once more.
