Beach Road Hotel, Bondi

Playing this gig has totally upstaged New Year's Eve for me. The afternoon and evening spent with Telafonicans and making new friends was it's own celebration of the end of 2011.
The room in which we set up was huge and only a small part of the whole complex. Melissa (room manager) and Jimmy (excellent excellent sound guy) were friendly, professional and efficient.
One of our bits of electronic stuff had a hissy fit so we dropped it from the band for the evening. We're flexible like that.
After sound check we had over four hours to explore the glories of Bondi beach so we toddled off down to the esplanade. Dinner on the imported sands of Bondi beach whilst watching camera crews descend on a misguided swimmer caught outside the flags was excellent. The salt spray was wonderful. I edited out all the concrete and the steel railings and watched the sea, the glorious sea! Blake disappeared down a Hobbit hole. Apparently Adrian, Cherry and Jenna were accosted by some unavoidably prominent anatomical architecture that waltzed passed their field of vision. When we had finished our picnic, we discovered that the water was much warmer than the breeze.
With our wet little feet, we walked a small portion of the superfine Grade A sand up off the beach and became one with the migration of pink English tourists on the street. There were so many exhibits to see - the bikinis on the beach, the tattoo parlour, the boutique pubs - walls and walls of glass so that everything and everyone could be on display!
We went back to the Beach Road and took advantage of their coffee machine and their TVs to catch the 20-20 Cricket while we waited for our turn to display. The Beach Road was packed full of fashionably tanned people and, pleasant to discover, some of them had migrated upstairs!
DJ Soup was really great. I think he's about my age because I knew a lot of what he was playing. Even more, I had sentimental connections with much of the repertoire.
It was great to have some friends along as well.
Our actual performance was pure fun. We had some dancers; we had many polite, still bodies with open ears and, apparently, one lady booing! Well, there's a first time for everything!
The sound was excellent. None of us had to go fishing for our voices in a blur of noise. We bounced our way through the set:

The Quest for Love Aboard the Belafonte
The Unravelling Man
Heartbeatings for those with Heartbeats
I Can Hear there's a Peace in the Dark
There's Something About Your Face
Your Hands
Sister Zephyr
Well Well Well (John Lennon)
To Me
The Separation Prepared this for Another Marriage

After we played, it was very lovely to speak to David, a Clan Analogue connection who came with some other electronicas and enjoyed the show. You kind of live for these conversations where some kindred spirit emerges from the darkness on the other side of the lights and says, "I like what you did there!" and compares notes.
The evening finished and the morning began as it always does on a gig night. Telafonica and friends (tonight included Ben and Jenna - thanks guys!) lug our toys to the Spacia and stand in the car park for a last chat and a reluctant goodbye. This time it was a "See you next year" kind of affair.