On Monday night, they were welcomed to Melbourne with the kind of audience love that makes you crave live music. In the balcony a little boy waved as they bowed, while grandpas bopped like they were teenagers to the encore written by Thurston Moore.
I've had a serious crush on this group since I saw them in Adelaide in 1996, Barrie Kosky brought them to the Adelaide Festival, and I still feel like a groupie. They played music that I hadn't heard, in a way that changed the type of CDs I bought. (And who knew Philip Glass was more than film soundtracks to get stoned to!)
If you missed Monday, here's a taste.
Tonight (Wednesday) they are joined by students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in a concert that includes Brian Eno's Music For Airports, which has been transcribed for a large ensemble and BOAC founder Julia Wolfe's Big Beautiful Dark and Scary.
Wolf wrote this piece after watching 9/11 attacks with her two young children, two blocks from the Twin Towers. I've seen/read a lot of work about these attacks, but they always seem distancing. Music is the art that captures the emotion and lets us, who are so lucky to have not experienced anything like it, know for a moment what it felt like.
BOAC celebrated 25 years this year by giving fans a free download of the Big Beautiful Dark and Scary album. Wolf's piece can be described no better than big, beautiful, dark and scary, and I can't wait to hear it live tonight.
And here's the review on AussieTheatre.com
