ASR – December

2)
The ornate facade of the Spiegeltent 3) The very civilised
bar, replete with mirrors, a theme echoed throughout

Stephen
Cummings at the Spiegeltent
1.12.05 – One delightful aspect of spending
a longish time on this earth is that you get to meet people
that you might otherwise have missed if you’d left early. One
such person is Stephen Cummings, whom I’ve run into occasionally
at festivals, but with whom I hadn’t spent any time until recently.
As a result, he offered me a freebie to come and see him and
his band at the world-famous Spiegeltent, which currently squats
between the NGV and the Arts Centre as part of its perpetual
world tour.
My first surprise was how small the Spiegeltent is – I was expecting
something more like a Big Top, for some reason. That’s not to
say it’s in any way mean, but it’s more like a modestly
dimensioned wooden marquee (with mirrors and a bar) than a tent.
Jimmy Sloggett said that Marlene Dietrich sang in this very
space, and I could well imagine it – the Spiegeltent resonates
of Europe in the ’20s and ’30s.
I got myself a chardonnay and sat down – and was very pleasantly
entertained by Stephen and his band for the next hour and a
bit. I didn’t know much about Stephen’s songs until he gave
me a couple of his more recent albums, in particular Close
Ups, which consists of acoustic renditions of his Sports’
repertoire on the Liberation Blue label, which incidentally
has some sort of tie-up with the Spiegeltent. He’s a thoughtful
writer who highlights aspects of relationships in their various
phases with a wry kind of bemusement, which I appreciate all
the more given the examination my own songs are getting at my
solo gigs. As we all know he has a great voice too, and although
he doesn’t say all that much during his performance, he surprised
me with quite a long and quite absurd story about an encounter
with an Alaskan bear simply to introduce one song.
It was very hot though, and quite close, and I thought an hour
was just about right, until I heard some woman complaining afterwards
that it was ‘light on’. I guess she must have paid..
I wandered down to Southgate with the intention of getting a
bite, but confronted with one café after another full
of chattering people, I decided that was going to be too lonely
a business on my own and retired to the Café Vic in the
Arts Centre, (which always looks as if it’s closing whenever
you get there), and had a toasted sandwich and a cuppa. Just
right.
I gave the Archibald exhibition a cursory look on the way out,
and was mildly disconcerted by the number of artists who’d decided
that a self-portrait in the nude was the thing to do this year.
Must’ve been something in the air. Anyway, I trust they pull
their heads -and other bits – in next year.