Fred Eaglesmith

The Fred Eaglesmith show last Thursday was great fun. Fred was in fine form and he had his stellar band The Flying Squirrels providing wonderful accompaniment.

Fred Eaglesmith - a great name by the way - is a Canadian folk singer/songwriter. His songs, as described in his biography, are:

... populated with people he has been and has known: tried-but-true blue-collar guys, tired cowboys, young boys in love, bare-knuckled farmers, heartbreakingly good women, beautifully bad women, lonesome good guys, bravura bad guys Friday-night criminals and everyone in between. Says Eaglesmith, "I think the bottom of the barrel is where the answers are." In Eaglesmith's sure hands, a song about a dreamless small-town snowplow driver is a song of universal truth.

I am not a fan of trucking music, but Fred's songs about trucks and trains have another dimension. He does sing about other things as well as providing extremely funny between song monologues. They're risque and highly politically incorrect.

There was a young girl standing next to me who amazingly was a Fredhead. She was extremely enthusiastic and kept yelling out to Fred. He kept snapping back at her, telling her to shutup and at one stage told her she was too young to be at one of his shows as you had to have at least one divorce and have been arrested to appreciate his shows. He was only kidding of course.

His humour is dark and sardonic and he appreciates the oddities of life. He was very taken with the Aussie term "Smash Repairs" which is the local name for automotive care centres. It's a delightful oxymoron, when you come to think of it.

The band as previously mentioned were excellent, particularly Willy P Bennett who played remarkably fine mandolin and harmonica. He's a really interesting looking character and a master musician.

It was a most entertaining evening and Fred Eaglesmith didn't disappoint. He's outrageous, highly articulate and a superb showman.

Update on Autumn Racing Carnival

Further to my last entry on horse racing, it was a very fine day's racing this afternoon. I watched it all on television.

Haradasun actually won his first group one race today. He won it very eccentrically coming wide down the extreme outside from the rear of the field, veering towards the outer side of the track. Even though he wasted ground doing this, he still won. It was his first race in Sydney where the races are run in the opposite direction to Melbourne. Hence his tendency to veer to the outer. I did bet $5.00 each way on him and he paid quite handsomely as, for once, he wasn't the favourite.

Miss Finland won as well, thrashing Tuesday Joy, though Apache Cat only managed third to Haradasun.