Talking Poofy Tour Blog - Day One

Thursday November 17, 9.30am. Adelaide.

I think I am still a bit drunk from last night, our opening night here at the Feast Festival. "Still Drunk" is probably my least favourite result from the morning lottery that is waking up after a night on TP, even less welcome the "can't move/talk" double headliner I scored in Hobart last week. 

I woke up this morning and proceeded through the standard post-TP checklist: Am I face up? Tick. Do I recognise where I am? Is it where I was aiming for? Tick. Is there anything pooled near me? No? Tick. Right, let's take a look at memories: do you have any? Patchy, Captain. Mostly bright flashes. Okay, we'll just have to work around that. Now, move your head slightly, but suddenly. How did that feel? Absolutely painless?!? O dear, that's worst possible. You sir, are still a bit drunk.

Still Drunk means you have to go through the onset of your hangover without the cover of sleep. It's like unanesthetised surgery. But it's no good wishing I'd stopped at the fourth bottle now, just have to press on.

Let's talk about the show. It was, to be frank, pretty shitty. Not a train wreck by any means, but we were a bit scatterbrained and hadn't quite prepared properly and were not consistent. It felt a bit like showing a disinterested friend several hundred holiday photos of the same beach.

Also, speaking for myself, I felt like the venue put me off a bit. It's a tent. A melon-farming tent, people. What am I, Coco the fucking Clown? As a performing artist I have very few minimum requirements, but sadly, a solid fucking structure to work within in is one of them. Call me Mariah, but one of the great things about being onstage is that you are on a fucking stage and not standing lonely in a dirt circle inside a glorified two man Trailmaster assaulted by the overpowering stench of mouldering cut grass

The whole Festival is sited in Light Square in Adelaide, which is one of several large parks in central Adelaide that basically take up a city block. It's fenced off and there are despondent clutches of plastic garden furniture scattered around, inbetween various tents and shipping containers in which the different shows and exhibitions are taking place. There's a food tent and bar staffed by exactly the kind of overexcited fat volunteer fags that make me yearn for the dour professionalism of a Qantas battleaxe. You know, wacky hats and that sort of shit. Look, "Brendan" (probably), full marks for your "I Can't Even Think Straight" t-shirt and spangly pink cowboy hat, by which I mean, do fuck off,  but a) stop gasbagging and get me my fucking drink and b) your panicked attempts to over-sexualise yourself in this context give the lie to the fact that you have and will never enjoy congress with any two-legged living creature until the end of time, so quit it.

The whole effect of this temporary carnival is a bit off the mark. To be honest it feels a bit more like somewhere you could get food if your house was destroyed in a cyclone than a Festival hub, but hey, that's showbiz. Sometimes your name is up in lights in front of hundreds of adoring fans, and sometimes you're hiding from your castmates in a hand-cranked portapotty in the middle of a glorified traffic island and that's more than I probably deserve in any case.