Attending: Poetry Slam

Ok so strictly speaking this happened on Friday but we've had a long weekend here and it's been nice moving away from the 'puter for a bit. (But it's ok baby, I'll never leave you again :)

Uh - anyways, the ANU Writers (group? kollective? liberation front?) puts on a poetry slam at the Front Cafe in Lyneham on the last Friday of every month - a night of open mic uni student poetry as well as a mixture of local bands.

My housemate's band Snowbug was playing and there's often some fairly decent poetry thrown into the mix (you still get your quota of the other as well but pretentious, overly personal/intellectualised guff read in earnest poet voice is all part of the entertainment really) so it was all a bit of a fait accompli.

The Front Cafe is a nice space, light and open with retro stylings, comfy couches and a gallery space - they also sell drinks now. (Although, they haven't quite gotten around to organising the key ingredients in a Gin & Tonic - uh gin and tonic). It's the kind of place that Canberra needs a lot more of - preferably with a big lush beer garden out the back.

The event itself has a really friendly vibe and is often a bit of a wall to wall crush of people - being a long weekend in Summer before uni is back though this one was a little more spacious which was nice.

I have to confess that I was one of those people that I've known myself to tut-tut about in my less easy-going moments at shows - I didn't make a big effort to catch the poetry this time around as it seemed that half the people I know in Canberra decided to turn up this time around (as well as some new friends) so it was nice to get some quality catching up and chatting time in. (At least I wasn't doing this in the performance room, so it's not like it was really rude).

The Snowbug sets were (obviously) a highlight though, the band appeared as a stripped back 3 piece this time around which suited their sound (offbeat loud keyboard-edged pop-rock) and banged out a range of songs to popular acclaim. This is one of their last shows in their current form - singer Tim Gummersall is UK-bound shortly - so it will be interesting to see where they go from here. (But just quietly, there is an outside chance I'll be hopping on stage in a backing vocals capacity sometime soon - stay tuned for details).

As I said earlier, I didn't hear a lot of the poetry although I did note one girl doing a pretty impressive line in Ani Di Francoesque hiphop delivery that I wish I'd heard a little more of. (My cynical ex thought it had something to do with the fact that she was quite cute but to that I say Tish Posh. )

One of the things I liked best about the night was the sense of being in a little hub of creative energy - in addition to everything that was happening on stage there were pockets of discussion all around, people talking about ideas and projects and teaming up - it was great.

And nary an Australian flag to be seen.