Migrating Pelican makes splash

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Their set was a typical punk-rock show (sans stage diving, crowd surfing and moshing) made memorable by the charismatic performance of lead singer and guitarist "K-Rock".
Beads of sweat glowed pink on the foreheads of the trio under the neon lights, Ramone-like ornamented leather jackets glistened and audience members crooned along with the baseball-capped performers. Punters crowded around the stage, sipped beer and tapped, bopped, and rocked along to the simple riffs and three-part harmonies. During the half-hour set crammed with short, fast punk songs, not a single person left the crowd.

The unique vocals of K-Rock resonated above the music, the tempo rarely dropped from 150bpm, a bang-bang-clash, a bang-bang-smash! The spoken/sung lyrics were often hard to make out and were easily mistaken for profanities, as opposed to what the songs were actually about: love and punk.
Other performers on the night were The Onyas, Interstator and the Ramonettes. Like the Ramonettes, Mach Pelican use the 1970s revolutionary punk legends the Ramones as a major influence, evident from the similar high energy and simple riffs that shape their songs.
Obviously well-rehearsed, their set was entertaining and enjoyable, thanks to the band's extensive experience. And no wonder: playing hundreds of gigs, touring with the Vandals, Guttermouth and the Donnas, and being totally devoted to punk wouldn't harm any punk hopefuls.

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Excuse me, sir, your show is slipping.

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Before even coming to a criticism of the content of the report or a consideration of the merits of Rod Stewart as a performer, singer and artist (after all, that is what he does), it really makes you wonder what Channel Nine was thinking to run the piece as a news item in its late edition news.

If it was meant as a human-interest story - what in some circles is known as "The Gorilla Story": the report that often rounds out the news presentation (in an effort to create in the viewer a mood of somnolent generalised good will that will incline him less to switch channels) on the latest efforts at some zoo somewhere to breed the great primates in captivity - then it was misplaced, mistimed and downright mistaken.

Anyone who might have thought that a report on a rock singer cum standards warbler might make some mention of the performer's art would have been disappointed. The extent of music or of mention of music in the four minutes-plus (and, believe me, that is a long time on TV) of the item can scarcely have exceeded 20 seconds. But, of course, only someone born under a rock, raised in a cave in the Negev Desert and spending his maturity tending yaks in Tibet (or alternatively, someone with a genuine interest in the actual musical worth of Rod Stewart's corpus, as opposed to his body) would have been so unaware of the true character and purpose of the report as to register disappointment.

The purpose, as intimated above, was to warn us all that the lewd agenda of the Baby Boomers is still being implemented through every available public medium; and that, no matter what the lessons may have been of the past 30 years, the children of the revolution have steadfastly failed to learn them and have remained as innocent of wisdom as when they retained their hair and body shirts hid their gaunt frames as a tent would.

Take Ray's intro. With a wink to the gallery, he says: "In 1978, Rod Stewart asked the question: 'Do you think I'm sexy?'" He goes on to intimate that seven-year-old Penny Lancaster would have been incapable of even understanding the question. Let us hope so. But, why bring attention to such a consideration? Because the tiresome Ray Martin would hate for us to miss the entire point of the thing: Ms Lancaster is Mr Stewart's junior by 27 years (Stage direction: open sleeve: go "tee hee").

Where to go from there? Downhill is out of the question; having hit rock bottom at first blush, David Margan merely has to follow the cue and milk the premise for all its worth. Hence the low-angle shots of the 6'1" Lancaster heavy her bronzed thighs to and fro as she lopes along beside the much shorter and thicker Margan; the thrilling revelation that Rod met Penny when in the company of "my wife, Rachel Hunter" (Stage direction: added sarcasm for effect (Question: for what effect?)); the discovery that Penny was studying photography at the time of their meeting; the comment from Rod that Penny keeps him fit in more ways than one (Stage direction: as above: "tee hee"); the astonishingly rapier wit of Margan when he comments on a photograph of Rod that Penny had taken when they were on holiday in France that Rod was well dressed for someone on holiday (Question: why didn't that face-burningly embarrassingly stupid few centimetres of film end up on the cutting room floor?); and so on, and so on, and …

I might add that this review of the item contains an equal measure of appreciation, positive or negative, of Rod Stewart's music as did the item under consideration: none whatsoever.

You can view the video of the item here.

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