Writers/Journalists who have the talent to capture the essence of Melbourne have my utmost respect and admiration... here is one such article that appeared in today's AGE written by Rachel Buchanan...
Escaping to the beautiful fringe
Have you noticed how many good-looking people there are in Melbourne?
I had the luxury of observing a most attractive and interesting crowd when I went to see Canadian folk singer Martha Wainwright at the Northcote Social Club on Friday night. Everyone looked good, even the bouncer.
I have never seen so many perfectly fashionable blunt fringes, choppy fringes, asymmetrical fringes, rats tails and mullets together in the one place at one time. The woman on the ticket desk had long black hair and a silky black fringe that ended just above her shapely thin dark brows. Her skin was pale and flawless, her dress was decorated with unfrayed ribbons and lace.
After she had stamped my wrist, the lovely mouth beneath the neat fringe said "thank you Rachel", like she had known me for a long time and was really happy that I had shown up.
In the band room, small groups watched Josh Ritter sing. Ritter was the support act. The cute stories he told between songs and in the middle of songs were heart-melting. And he was very modest. "I am so proud to be here," he said more than once.
After a fair bit of this sort of thing, interspersed with self-deprecating love songs and foolish grins, some sections of the audience became over-heated.
"Oh, you're good," one woman called out. "Will you marry me Josh?" another said.
I was there on my own, so I had nothing better to do than stare at other people and eavesdrop on their conversations. A group of six came in and stood by me: three women and three men. One of the women was younger than the other two. She wore a denim mini and a T-shirt that said "faded", which obviously referred to the grey cotton it was printed on rather than the wearer herself, who was young, blonde and pink-cheeked.
She put her arms around one of the men. The other four moved off a bit and started talking about how much weight they had put on.
"Look," said one of the men, a tall slender fellow with a couple of petite rats tails at the nape of his neck, "I've started to get breasts!"
One of the women complained she had gone up a whole size in the past year. The other one, who was dark and wore a slim-fitting leather jacket sprinkled with plastic slogan badges that I couldn't read in the dark, said her waist used to be so much finer than it was now.
I got another pot and when I came back the two men had their arms around each other's waists. Measurement did not seem to be an issue.
I love the Melbourne that starts at 10pm and ends some time the next morning, the city where the town square is a pool table and the water cooler is a bar. The city that is poorly lit and grubby, the city of sideburns and cowboy shirts and cigarette machines, the city where the heroes have guitars rather than footballs, where what you hear is sound - pure sweet dirty sound rather than cynical, pre-rinsed, meaningless sound bites.
Age, parenthood and geography mean that this is a Melbourne I visit less and less. Much of my life now happens in bright, sober, tracksuit-filled spaces: supermarkets, kitchens, the driver’s seat of the white station wagon.
Friday night reminded me just how much I miss the dark honesty of this other Melbourne.
Defiant, damaged and super-talented, the awesome Martha Wainwright could be a pin-up girl for this place. Her hit is Bloody Mother F---ing Asshole, a song about her folk singer father. The song is fairly bracing but it is nevertheless refreshing to come across someone who is angry at their father rather than their mother.
On Friday, Martha saved her swearwords for the end of the gig. Lids heavy and blonde hair frayed, she clung to the microphone for her first few songs, giggling one minute, howling the next.
When she sang Far Away, the first track on her brilliant album, I felt tears spin up behind my eyes. For me, for her, who knows?
Martha sang: "I have no children, I have no husband/I have no reason to be alive/Oh give me one." Before Martha had come on, I'd been talking to the beautiful woman next to me.
She was 38 but didn’t look it. She said: "I've given myself till the end of summer to find someone to have a baby with."
That night the temperature dropped below zero. Driving home, the stars were brilliant over the frozen city.
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