Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Kate Ceberano does Fremantle

Amazing! I just looked out the window and could see the day was overcast. Furthermore there's been heavy rain overnight and there are puddles on the ground. I hope this doesn't encourage any of our motorbike frogs to go a wanderin'. I thought the sky was clear when we went to bed at 11pm.

The folks at the Fremantle Army Museum will be thanking their lucky stars the rain held off. They had a long-time organised fund-raising open air concert on the parade ground of the old Fremantle Artillery Barracks in in Burt Street, Fremantle last night. It featured the popular Australian singer Kate Ceberano with a backing by the cryptically named Australian Army Band Perth. The compare was an outspoken Perth commercial radio shock-jock named Howard Sattler. The concert was one of the first events to kick off the Fremantle Festival.

Our involvement was that we called on to supply our Army Cadet children as volunteer ushers. The accompanying note said there would be no complimentary ticket for a parent or guardian because the tickets were deemed too valuable. That's nice. Instead, parents no matter at what distance they lived from the venue were expected to drop off their children at 5.30 pm and collect them at 10.30 pm. Alternatively they could buy tickets, which ranged from $38 to $89.

Luckily we live only about a six minute drive from the barracks. As talented as Ms Ceberano and the band are, we chose the drop off and pick up option.

Only one of our now two remaining Cadet kids volunteered - our youngest son who is almost 13. I think he was mainly attracted by the offer of being allowed to keep the ushering torch after the concert. There was also the temptation of a free sausage, bun and drink from the fund-raising sausage-sizzle stall. His older sister has done this sort of thing before and free torches and sausage sizzles are no longer an incentive.

We delivered our uniformed son at the appointed time. It was the first occasion he had worn his 'polyesters,' which is the jargon for the military's conservative dress uniform used for ceremonial occasions. He said that the pants were itchy, but that this was also a common complaint he'd heard from other Cadets. When he put on his slouch hat I realised that he needed a haircut, but it was too late. He'd look okay in the dark.

When we rocked up later at 10.30 pm the concert was still in full swing, but people were starting to trickle out. This is probably why we were able to find a parking spot close by. I spotted a gecko in the middle of the road and rescued it.

The music was pretty loud. There are a lot of people who live in the vicinity of the old barracks. Hopefully they had resigned themselves to listening to the patriotic-Australian fervour in a good mood. I feel sure there was no heavy death metal emo music last night. If the neighbours had their wits about them they could have made a bootleg recording of Ms Ceberano.

Camo nets had been slung along the fence to prevent people from having a free look, but they didn't work. It was easy to peek through the holes and see what was going on.

We wandered over to the side gate. The state governor's limo was parked there ready for a fast getaway - it's good to be a neo-king. No Cadets were in sight so we went around to the main gate where a lady was trying to hive off unused packs of sausage-sizzle bread rolls for two bucks each to patrons as they left.

Up on the stage we could see the still-enthusuiastic Ms Ceberano pumping it out with the red-jacketed military band persons. People in the front $89 seats were standing with their arms in the air swaying from side to side in time with the music. They were having a hallelujah happening. Presumably somewhere amongst them was the state governor also waving his arms to demonstrate his solidarity with the proletariat. The concert appeared to have been a great success.

Amazingly we connected up with our son very quickly. He'd been hanging about the main gate with some other Cadets. We gathered our lad had experienced a pretty good night, but he was chilling down temperature-wise. He sought leave from his CO and with brilliant timing we were able to depart the precinct as the final curtain came down - except there was no curtain because it was an open air concert.

© MMVII Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.

Advertisement