Tim Freedman

Tim Freedman is coming to New Zealand, and Wellington, for the first time! Who is Tim Freedman? He’s the frontman of Aussie band The Whitlams, who hit fame, fortune and grief in the 90’s. He’s the only survivor of the original threesome, the other two members having killed themselves in 1996 and 2000. He carried on with new musicians, keeping the name The Whitlams for most of his career, but also touring as himself (I saw him in London as Tim Freedman). The band have recently reunited and released new material under the name The Whitlams Black Stump, but for his current tour of New Zealand he is performing just under his name.

He's playing at the San Fran, one of Wellington’s smaller venues with a capacity of 500. As it’s in Cuba Street this gave us an opportunity to gain another stamp on our Mosaic passport by dining at Kisa, where we overordered to the extent that we took some of it home in boxes. We then headed up the street to get there in time to stake a place at one of the few tables at the back of the venue. But wait? What’s this? The whole venue has been set out with tables and chairs! Apparently they’re not expecting the youth crowd for this gig, even though we’ve seen previous performers there who attract a somewhat vintage crowd of punks, goths etc. So we staked a place upon one of the benches near the back. Maybe the fact that the doors opened at 6:00pm was a clue...?

The support act came on about half an hour later: Tyson Smith is a local Wellington musician, and played a set of songs old and new (he released an album in 2014, and another last year) with his acoustic guitar. The songs are very long so he only got through five of them. 

After a bit of clearing up and tuning up, Ollie took the stage, shortly followed by Tim Freedman. Together they make up 40% (he’d done the maths for us, and told us this) of The Whitlams Black Stump, who tour and produce albums under that name. their latest, Kookaburra, is what they’re promoting with this latest tour, which is also visiting some of the main centres in Australia, playing with symphony orchestras rather than the small venues they’re playing in New Zealand. Unfortunately they've yet to make it available in New Zealand in CD format, so I haven't bought it.

He started out with Charlie No. 1 and Charlie No. 2, both familiar tunes to the cognoscenti, before diving in to new material. Tim sat at his keyboard throughout, and Ollie variously played pedal steel guitar and other guitar parts. At no point did he wield “one of those keyboard axes, wanted to get out and dance away from the piano”. They played a mixture of songs, but definitely leaning to those that featured a piano-based arrangement, rather than some of the more guitar-oriented tunes of yesteryear. 

They wrapped up the set by around 8:30pm so us fogies could take ourselves off to bed.

Le Petit Chef

Le Petit Chef is a self-described “immersive dining experience” with “the world’s smallest chef”. It’s available around the world, and in Wellington it’s put on at the Intercontinental hotel.

We’d been enjoined to arrive half an hour early, although this appeared to be for their benefit rather than ours as there wasn’t any additional entertainment of drinks, just their standard hotel choice. We were eventually ushered into what appeared to be a meeting room set up for dining. Above each table was a projector which is the source of the animated show. Tables are set for four people, so we were sharing with a couple from Kapiti.

Before the dinner started the host introduced herself, took us through emergency procedures, and explained what was going to happen. Then the lights went down, and the first of a series of skits was projected onto our table and our plates as the chef, an animated character, sets about preparing the first course from his garden. It’s billed as “3D animation” but is, in fact, decidedly 2D.

 In between each course there’s a similar show, lasting a few minutes each. The food that comes out afterwards does somewhat resemble what is in the animation but isn’t necessarily an exact match. The courses were quite small, but with five of them there was sufficient that we didn’t go hungry. Overall the quality was what you’d expect in a hotel restaurant – good, but not outstanding.

Caprese salad

Bouillabaisse

Chicken with truffle

Chocolate mousse

Was it worth it? It was good, but not brilliant. A bit of a gimmick. Apparently, there’s a whole series of these with further additions to the story, but I don’t think we’ll be going back for more.

Paul Kelly

Veteran Aussie raconteur Paul Kelly is touring Australia and New Zealand. I’ve known about him for many a decade – even saw him playing at Shepherd’s Bush Empire before we moved to New Zealand!  I thought it was high time I saw him again.

As usual we arranged dinner first. The wider restaurant group that operates Mr. Go’s are currently running a promotion whereby you collect stamps each time you visit, with the aim of getting $50 reduction once you’ve collected them all. We’d already registered Parla, and collected a second stamp at Mr Go’s who provided us with their usual high-quality EastAsian inspired nosh. And we’ll be visiting Kisa soon as well.

It's but a short hop, skip, and jump down Cuba Street to the Michael Fowler Centre. We were there in time for the support act Reb Fountain, a kiwi who’s been around a while a has made half a dozen albums in the country/folk style so beloved of New Zealand women. She acquitted herself well, with tunes old and new.

Then it was time for the main act. Paul Kelly is supported by a 6-piece band, and he played a whole bunch of old well-known songs. There was quite a bit of newer material, which I was expecting to be honest, as he’s been busy - releasing 13 albums since I saw him last (he’s done 28 in total in various guises)…but there was enough of the recognisable tunes, and a lot of chat about them in between as well. He finished up the set with three classics: Dumb Things, How To Make Gravy, and From Little Things Big Things Grow, which got everyone singing along. He then returned for a four-song encore including Leaps And Bounds, one of his earliest hits. That set list in full can be found here.

As ever, he gave us solid entertainment with a set that ran well over the allocated two-hour time slot.