The Cats Meow

Last night the city of Stirling put on a free concert as part of their summer festival at Scarborough beach.  We don't actually live in Perth but rather in Stirling.  Perth itself is quite small and basically only encompasses the CBD and immediate surrounds.  The 'proper' city of Perth is surrounded by other 'cities' such as Stirling.  It's similar to the model used in a lot of places, but not Calgary.  Scarborough beach is one of the biggest and busiest beaches in the greater Perth area.  It also has the distinction of being the most dangerous.  This is due to a number of factors including: the size of the beach, the number of people that visit it and the strong currents and crashing waves.  Over the last two weeks or so the city has been putting on a summer festival at the beach.  It's included stuff like an international beach volleyball competition.  This was the last night of the celebrations.   The "Cats Empire" was brough in to close the festivities.  They are an Australian group from Melbourne with an up-tempo, horn, percussion and piano-heavy sound.  They have a Ska base with a pinch of soul, hip-hop and rock for flavour.  Ironically, we saw them at the Calgary Folk Fest last summer.  Unfortunately, Keva had to work.  So, we dropped her off at work, went to the show, picked her up from work, came back for the last two songs and then went home.

 Zaren in the foreground listening to the opening act.  The venue was pretty cool in that it was a big amphitheatre surrounding and elevated above the stage.  The stage was situated on the beach. In the background you can see the ocean.  So, there was good sound and lots of good sightlines.

 The Cats Empire on stage.  There must have been at least 7000 people at the show or hanging around the beach behind the stage.  There were quite a few people swimming in the water throughout the night, even after it got dark.

Almost immediately after the last note played the first firework was launched over the stage.  We've been in Australia for 3 months now and this is the third fireworks display we've seen. Odd.