The White Album Concert

If you don't know how I came to be at the White Album Concert, the story is here. It explains why we arrived half way through Dear Prudence for a start.

We missed 2 and half songs, which is a great shame.

But anyway, what was the White Album Concert you ask? It was Chris Cheney (The Living End), Phil Jamieson (Grinspoon), Josh Pyke (Josh Pyke) and Tim Rogers (You Am I and all the insanity that is Tim Rogers) getting together with a lot of good musos and performing the tracks of the Beatles' White Album in celebration of its 40th anniversary.

In case you're curious, this is who sang what:

Can You Take Me Back - Band
Back in the USSR - Chris Cheney
Dear Prudence - Phil Jamieson
Glass Onion - Chris Cheney
Ob La Di Ob La Da - All 4
Wild Honey Pie - Tim Rogers
Bungalow Bill - Tim Rogers
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Chris Cheney
Happiness is a Warm Gun - Tim Rogers
Martha My Dear - Josh Pyke
I'm So Tired - Phil Jamieson
Blackbird - Josh Pyke
Piggies - Tim Rogers
Rocky Raccoon - Josh Pyke
Don't Pass Me By - Phil Jamieson
Why Don't We Do It in the Road - Chris Cheney
I Will - Phil Jamieson
Julia - Josh Pyke

Birthday - Chris Cheney
Yer Blues - Phil Jamieson
Mother Nature's Son - Josh Pyke
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey - Tim Rogers
Sexy Sadie - Phil Jamieson
Helter Skelter - Chris Cheney
Long, Long, Long - Josh Pyke
Revolution - Tim Rogers
Honey Pie - Phil Jamieson
Savoy Truffle - Chris Cheney
Cry Baby Cry - Josh Pyke
Goodnight - Tim Rogers

If you know the artists and the songs, you'll probably come to same conclusion I did - it was unlikely that there was much squabbling over who sang what, most of them seem incredibly obvious. The program says that Tim Rogers confesses "that Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da is his least favourite song of the 1960s". It also says that he would be singing it. Perhaps the song got the better of him, because the other 3 sang it without him:


until the last verse, at which point he finally appeared.

When he was on stage, Tim pranced, flounced and posed with incredible passion and comic timing. He continues to be far superior performing other people's music.

Chris Cheney, on the other hand, is just an awesome vocalist and guitarist. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was extraordinary.


A photo will never capture that sound, or the palpable appreciation of the audience for it.

I am sooooo tempted to describe it song by song, but that could get tedious, even for me. So a quick list of highlights: Tim Rogers was meant for Piggies (complete with snort), Phil Jamieson was poignant with I'm So Tired, Josh Pyke did Blackbird all the justice it deserved (I love that song), Chris Cheney was awesome and hysterical with Birthday, and Everybody's Got Something to Hide, Helter Skelter and Revolution were perfectly executed by their respective artists.

Special mention needs to be made of Phil Jamieson's Honey Pie. It was beautiful silent movie comedy, complete with Tim Rogers bringing on a long stemmed white flower to Phil to swoon over and with and ultimately throw into the audience. It was the height of the playful attitude they took with whole night, and it was fantastic.

After Goodnight, they all came back on stage together and sang Revolution, Hey Bulldog and Why Don't We Do It in the Road.


They rather appeared to enjoy themselves.

Given everything that happened, I felt a glass of bubbly was in order during the intermission so I jumped in the queue and had my star spotter moment for the night - Matthew Newton was next to us. And just to reinforce that these were pretty reasonable seats, Mr Newton also walked past us to resume his seat in our row.

It was bloody awesome, is what I'm saying here. It was musically fantastic and hysterically funny. Great night, great performance.