George Hrab does Melbourne – Styrofoam Tour

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending George Hrab‘s single, free gig in Melbourne as part of his ‘Styrofoam’ tour of Australia and New Zealand, details about which you can read here.

What a night! The gig itself was fantastic, with about 50 people packed into a small back-bar of the Clyde Hotel in Carlton, making for an intimate setting which was truly a treat.

George performed many of the songs from his latest album Trebuchet, and my favourites were ‘Far’, the theme to 365 days of astronomy podcast, ‘Everything will die some day’, ‘Never Knew’, ‘When I was your age’, and ‘Small Comfort’, about the death of George’s dog Oscar, which always makes me tear-up, tonight being no exception. Shhh – don’t tell anyone.

The gig, however was only the beginning. I wasn’t expecting to discover some well known skeptics there, including Kylie Sturgess, Rebecca Watson, Richard Saunders, and Brian Dunning, who along with George himself, mingled with the crowd afterward.

After the crowd thinned out a little I caught up with Richard Saunders and before I knew it he called over Rebecca, George and Brian to sign a card for me and pose for a photo, which was a very pleasant surprise.

Yes, I am relatively short and round, and yes, this picture is frakkin awesome. ‘Nuff said about that.

I had a good chat with Brian about some various Skeptoid episodes, and both he and his lovely wife Lisa about travelling and camping in the desert. Did you know taking photos of scorpions with ultra-violet lights is really cool? I learnt this tonight from Lisa.

I had a chat with Richard about his camera, and watched him perform his applied kinesiology tricks (which are used by the power wristband salespeople to fool you into thinking these bands somehow improve your balance – you can read more about that at my ten-year-old son’s blog here), on Brain Dunning.

I didn’t get to chat to Rebecca Watson this time around, as she was surrounded most of the time. I did manage to chat with her a few times at TAM Oz however, and she’s pretty fabulous I must say.

In addition to these surprises, I also caught up with some new friends I made at TAMOz in Sydney over the weekend, and met a few new ones whom I hope to stay in touch with via Twitter.

I am so glad I went along to this gig. I’ve only recently discovered George Hrab, and he’s a talented entertainer with a great wit. If you haven’t heard his music, I recommend the tracks I listed above as a starting point, and subscribe to his podcast ‘Geologic’ via iTunes or at http://www.geologicpodcast.com.

Lucas.

Related Articles

• Report From TAM OZ (theness.com)
• TAM Australia – Impressions from Day 1 (codenix | blog)