07. Restaurant Review: Dumpling King

After hearing rave reviews about this restaurant, we decided to brave the cold on a wintery weekend that we were house-sitting in the area, and check it out for ourselves. Unfortunately for us, it was an altogether disappointing and horrid experience. I can safely say I’ve never sampled more disgusting ‘food’ in all my life (and I use that term loosely). I truly hope that this is the only time I will ever need to write a negative review on this blog.

To start off, the waiter was clearly unimpressed with our choices, as he snickered when we gave him our orders. Not a good start to the evening.
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06. Eddie Vedder, State Theatre, Sydney 2011

The State Theatre glitters in all of it’s dazzling glamour. No detail has been spared; the furnishings are exquisitely plush, from gilded staircases to marbled bathrooms, royal red carpet and an auditorium so decadent Mad King Ludwig himself would be shamed. It is truly a venue to house only the most glorious and gifted of artists, and what could be more fitting for God himself? For a god amongst men he is.

This is a man whose music shone through the dark, grittiness of the 90s grunge scene; one who survived the battles that claimed his peers; a man whose voice gave the world Daughter, Even Flow, Last Kiss, and Society. A voice that rings out, strong, piercing, wavering with 40 odd years of experience and raw emotion. And one that should have, by all rights, been silenced with the other legendary musicians of his generation.

Eddie Vedder.


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05. Restaurant Review: Sake Restaurant & Bar

We totter up the cobblestone steps of The Rocks, my brand-new heels no match for the ancient stones – pockmarked with age and a hundred years of memories I could never hope to fathom. We stop, and I’m allowed to look up, although the entrance of the restaurant is left mysteriously blank and I am still clueless to where we are dining tonight. It is dark inside, dim lighting gently illuminating the stone-brick walls, and the rows upon rows of bottles behind the dramatic, floor-to-ceiling glass paneling. Bottles of course, of sake.

in the pursuit of | Sake Restaurant & Bar

Hattori Hanzo and Pink Blossom cocktails, both made with sake of course.

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04. Rammstein vs Tool, BDO Sydney, 2011

It took the industrial gods of German rock that are Rammstein, clad and buckled in leather boots and vinyl uniforms, to rule the stage at Sydney’s Big Day Out on our very own Australia Day.

sugarpopblue | in pursuit of inspiration
If the deafening roar of the guitars didn’t catch your attention, the sky-high eruptions from the flame-throwers strapped to the band’s faces did (the heat from those firey pillars reached us at the back of the mosh, scorching our already flushed faces). Missiles of fireworks exploded above the stage, shooting towards the sound tent and then back again in retaliation. Flake jumps on a treadmill donning a mirrored tracksuit while Till’s booming voice thunders out the all the crowd favourites; Rammstein, Links 2-3-4, Du Reicht So Gut, Ich Will, Du Hast. I haven’t seen the crowd this electric all day. They’ve packed the stadium like sardines, blood boiling with the mercury , fueled by the rumble of the drums and the deep, dark intoxication that Rammstein belts out. The band doesn’t even falter in the typical 43-degree summer heat of Australia Day; they continue to serve it up to the ten-thousand strong army marching to their beat, the brutish punch of their music forcing fans and converts alike to join in unison, a legion of voices chanting along with the band as the clouds roll over, a fitting backdrop to the maelstrom the band has wreaked on stage.
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03. Muse, Entertainment Center, Sydney 2010

There is a difference between music-lovers and music-likers. There are those who listen to music in the car, bopping along to whatever the charts tell them is “good” and popular. They’ve probably never heard of Depeche Mode, Edith Piaf, Jeff Buckley, The Tea Party, or Tom Waits.

Then there are those that feel what I feel.

Music, food for my soul, in every painful lyric, every bleating note and every harmony strummed, fuels my lust for life. It moves me so violently, so passionately, not ever understanding what elevates me up to another plane and smashes me back down again.

So begins an odyssey of extra-sensory experiences that I choose to share with you. And for those who have never experienced the bittersweet highs and lows of great music, this is especially for you.

Muse, kings already after such a short reign, stand tall and proud as they rock the arena with riffs that rip right through you, into the very core of your being and reverberate within the walls of your flesh. Bellamy’s guitar creates a crescendo that wails and screams its fury against a backdrop of drums pounding out a steady pulse to this anthem, the bold beats churning the mosh into a sea of upraised fists fucking the air as the silver discs of percussion smash in cataclysmic climax.

sugarpopblue | in pursuit of inspiration
This is what music is all about. No, this is what music should be all about.

It ought to move you.
It ought to ROCK you.