John Shand Posts

May 19, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

People’s Republic of Australasia, May 2 9/10 I’ve lived through earthquakes, cyclones, blizzards, floods, bushfires and now a Peter Brotzmann concert. On the one hand the veteran German saxophonist’s playing is of such ferocity as to seem a force of nature, and yet on the other it is so profoundly…

May 16, 2018 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

Hayes Theatre, April 28 7.5/10 They were both married, so it was just a brief affair in the Mexican summer of 1937 between the political revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, 57, and the artistic revolutionary, Frida Kahlo, 29. “What,” asks the eccentric musical Carmen Live or Dead, “if that affair had resulted…

May 13, 2018 / Album Reviews - Archive

MOTHER (ABC) 8.5/10 In concert George Xylouris and Jim White conjure up a mighty sound for just a duo, given that the former plays lute or lyra and the latter (of Dirty Three fame) a drum-kit. Here that sheer mass often seems like a wall of water: a vast wave…