Fun

Seated, I survey the venue from the mezzanine, sipping on 4 dollar lemonade. Two young girdled men take to the stage; one wields a guitar, the other dabbles with keys and digital miscellania. With the pulpit still bare, they begin. Electronic pulses ooze out. The man on the keys, the stouter of the two, dressed in a white turtleneck and whiter trousers, sings catchy tunes out of tune.

There is a fantastic video recording of an early Kraftwerk gig. The audience for electronic music did not exist yet; so a hodge-podge of subcultures constitute the punters, hippies arm-in-arm with proto-punks, mullets with cardigans and eyeliner. When the show started, the packed sedentary curiosity seekers were clueless of the étiquette for witnessing these new sounds which heralded the new age. Some meditated; others headbanged, fists included. Yet more gawped, their gaping mouths preserved for posterity on tape.

On stage, Barley Passable progress through a kaleidoscope of Euro pop, electro pop, house, disco – a mélange-mischung of French house and Teutonic electro – Daft Punk and Berlin nightclubs and too many hours of Eurovision distilled through teenage Australian ears. “It would be better if they were German,” opines my partner. I concur. But now, as the crowd swells below, and the duo start their own Kraftwerk version of the macarena, helped by alcoholic vapours swirling in the lights, old memories of fun seep through my stupor.

I croak up, free my locks, shift my way down the stairs to join in, and spill lemonade over my brogues.