Annual Nathan Eights Live Performance Music Awards

Welcome to the annual Nathan Eights (Live Performance) Music Awards!

This year they are being held unusually early in June instead of December. Seeing the best music I'm going to find in Palau is a cover band who plays every song to the exact same Ska beat, the awards have been moved forward.

And now without further ado the winners of this years Eightys:

• 60daysofstatic & Sleepmakeswaves 3/1 Hi Fi Bar. Winners of the award for '2nd most inappropriate support band', (recipient: some guy who played electronic dance music overlayed with early 90's Nintendo sounds).

• Weezer 13/1 BEC. Winners of the 'best intermission slide show' and 'best 90's flashback moment' awards.
  

• Devil's Kitchen 19/1 Beetle Bar. Winners of the 'best line up of awesome local bands' and 'best gig lighting with an extremely limited rig' awards (recipient: yours truly).

Off!

• Off! 21/1 The Zoo. Winners of 'performance of the year' award and 'best performance by a singer after almost going into a diabetic coma through lack of food and too much coffee' award  (recipient: Keith Morris)

• Gay Paris  26/1 The Joynt. Winners of 'best exhibition of gold underpants combined with fishnet stockings' and 'best collective facial (and body) hair' awards.
  

• Descendents & Bodyjar 8/2 Eatons Hill Hotel. Winn'ers of the 'best vocals by an instrumental band' (recipient: Descendents - attendees at the 'No Sleep Til' festival will get this reference).  Also '2nd Best 90's flashback moment' award (Recipient: Bodyjar).

• Puscifer 22/2 Tivoli. 'Best theatrical and unique performance', 'best product placement' (Recipient: caduceus wines) and 'best use of gopro's & LCD TVs' awards. 

• Soundwave festival 23/2 RNA showground. Best opening band ever (Recipient: Red Fang)

Red Fang

Orange Goblin

• Kyuss Lives!, Orange Goblin, Red Fang 26/2 The Palace Melbourne. Best line up as suggested by me' and best performance by support bands who could easily have been headlining their own shows.

• Tomahawk 27/2 Bilboard, Melbourne. 'Best delay before a quirky encore song' (more than half the venue had emptied out)

• Spencer P Jones 1/3 cherry Bar Melbourne. 'Best performance that was worthy of a larger audience' and 'Best hat'.

• Jon Spencer Blues Explosion 7/3 The Zoo. 'Best performance attended by overweight rockabilly chicks who were happy to bump and grind their rather large girth against people so they'd get uncomfortable and move to let them in'. 'Most disappointing lack of a real instrument replaced by an iphone' (theremin)

Bloc Party... ?

• Bloc Party 14/3 Melb Festival Hall. Award for 'most painful light show', and 'most amount of douchebag hipsters at a gig'.

• The Mark of Cain & Blacklevel Embassy 15/3 Hifi Bar Melb. 'Best pre-gig feed' (Stalactites), 'Best effort at drumming along with a band on top of a bar table causing a drink to tip over and spill into your girl's handbag' (yes the recipient was yours truly again).

• The Mark of Cain & Blacklevel Embassy 21/3 Hifi bar. 'Best mosh', 'Best post-gig mini spew' (Recipient: my mate Alex) & 'Best elbow to the head' (as received by yours truly).

Jimmy Carter




• The Blind Boys of Alabama 28/3 Tivoli. 'Best perfomance/walkabout in the middle of the crowd' (Recipient: Jimmy Carter)

• The Drones 12/4 Tivoli. 'Best keyboard playing by Stephen King's IT'.

• Black Sabbath 25/4 BEC 'Best performance by geriatrics who can still bring it' & Award for 'longest merch line ever'.

• Gay Paris & The Steady as She Goes, 26/5 The Joynt. 'Best one man band' & 'Best named 7 inch' (Recipient: The Steady as She Goes).

The Steady As She Goes

• Tool 6/5 BEC 'Best lighting, lasers and visuals'. 'Best mid-gig fainting by some kid standing in front of me'.

• Truckfighters, Giants of Science, BMX-Ray 9/5 Beetle Bar. 'Best performance by an over-hyped OS band' (Recipient: Truckfighters). 'Best no pedals guitar playing' (Recipient: Ben Salter)

Undia

• Unida & Shellfin 11/5 The Zoo. 'Best understated performance of the year', 'best individual beard' (Recipient: Arthur Seay).

• Deftones 14/5 Tivoli. 'Most energetic performance', 'Best singing from a crowded balcony despite being almost mauled'. 'Most inappropriate support band' (some American rapper with extremely dumb, sexist and generally offensive lyrics).

• Killing Joke 6/6 Hifi bar. 'Equal best performance by geriatrics who can still bring it' and 'best performance by a band that pissed me off by cancelling a gig i was supposed to see in Tokyo last year with no explanation nor apology' 

• Special Award to: Tym Guitars - for being the 'best damn record store/guitar shop in the world!'

Deftones