So I finally got to go along to see the Zac Brown Band at the Hordern Pavilion. I’ve seen more concerts in the last couple of months than I have in the preceding couple of years, and this was one of the best. To be fair, though, they’ve all been pretty good. I was, perhaps naively, surprised at how many people were there – and the wide cross-section of society that it represented. There were country people, in their RM Williams boots and rivers shirts, complete with sagging akubras and thirst for rum. There was the Newtown crowd – beards across their chins and long shirts to their knees – and then there were people that I couldn’t seem to place.
At concerts, it’s strange but I like to watch the people almost as much as the band. When the music starts, and the band begins performing, I like to look out across the crowd, lit up as they are by the strobing lights and flashes. Creepy? Maybe. But I think there’s something fascinating about the rapt concentration on their faces, as they sing along – or even just mouth their words – their heads all moving in time. It’s like they’re under a spell, which I guess they are, of a sort.
As for Zac Brown, they were sensational. There’s a very great pleasure in seeing a group of people do something that they are good at – and when it comes to entertaining, that’s what ZBB do. It was almost effortless, they way they blended Bohemian Rhapsody and Led Zeppelin with their own material, throwing in a few allusions to Australia and Bundy Rum. Don’t get me wrong – there was nothing that was particularly mind-blowing about the performance. There were no screens, no videos, no wrist-band gimmicks. Instead, it was just a bunch of guys playing music that everyone could sing along to. Perfect.