catching david neil at the beach road, my friend lilly and i pay homage with a smoke and we wander down the avenues and back streets parking her little bubble, traversing the wind, hit the wall of testosterone and girls shrieks from the football fall out, apparently its some sporty night and the bar is filled with drunk morons and their clone girls, all howling out about some drama. we wander through where dutch peirre comes over and says hello, the support band make me tense, they are young guys with that faces, stones, pub rock kinda feel, they have lots of fans in the crowd and they look like classic rock stars, nonchalant and yet groovy, the opposite of the way i would look on stage, self conscious awkward and out of place, no these young characters have the chops and bravado but their music is boring and drives me mental. then hail, it's david neil, kilbey and maymi and some very good musicians take the stage, maymi looks like an orthodox jewish mystic in his hat and with his moves, he's dabbling in esoteric noise, creating some sort of sonic vortex drone, it's immediate and everyone enters the spirit of the thing, lilly and i both look at one another and confess we travelled back to 1967, she stayed in australia up the coast while i was in california. 
i have the cd in my ipod and know all the words, it was great singing along to these obscure lost classics. lilly and i enjoy every second, steve plays guitar and sings he is the maestro, his voice is perfect, it's changed, inhabiting a different persona, yet distinctive as his voice. by now everyone is going mental, people stand up on tables and lilly asks very politely if they would climb down cos we can't see anything, there's a drama at the bar, girl fight, some people start dancing at the front, during 'comedown' someone sings out loudly in my ears, dutch pierre takes his jacket off and goes down the front. old captain mission is wearing new boots, he sits down watching the show, soaking it all in, 'the neverness hoax' is the standout, really brilliant and then the sing along romantic song whose name i don't know, 'still in love with you' or something, what a hit single if ever there was one. it's from jack frost.
then gone, we disappear into the cold night, home for cocoa and cinnamon drinks and hot water bottles, i know that's not very rock and roll but  i like it.