Anthony Morgan - Victoria Hotel, Melbourne 02/05/06 - by epod

I have been dying to see Anthony Morgan live for many years now, but this has been a rather difficult, near on impossible thing to do. This is because since he moved to Tasmania a few years back, he now only rarely does stand-up. I have raved to many people about how awesome this man is, and sitting waiting for the show to start, I hoped that this show was not going to turn out shithouse, and leave me feeling like a nostalgic dickhead that should keep her mouth shut.

I needn't have worried. This was an awesome gig with a rather bizarre, very full-on ending. Firstly, Anthony talked for the first 45 minutes or so in a nice, sedate manner. I was quite surprised that he didn't seem to go out on as many weird tangents as he used to. This may have a lot to do with the fact that he isn't so heavily into the drugs and alcohol as he used to be. He even mentioned on stage that he now only drinks light beer. Who'd have thought? Anthony Morgan drinking light beer!

Anthony talked about his hat, which he said that he purchased on eBay. He said that someone else purchased it for him, but was quick to point out that yes he knows how to work it, it's just that the person who buys it, "needs to be allowed to have a credit card". His stories of life in rural Tasmania were all interesting and amusing. He also told the audience about his trip over from Tasmania on the ferry.

Originally, he had tried to scam a free ticket from the ferry company by saying nice things about them on stage, however they declined his generous offer. Anthony then thought that he could instead go onstage and say how shit the ferry was. However, when he actually got on the ferry he found out that it was fantastic and that he had nothing to complain about. He was sharing a four bunk berth, and when he went to get some sleep, there was another guy lying on the bed below him. The bloke said, "Sorry mate I snore." Anthony said, "Thats okay, I stink." With that the other bloke nodded off to sleep.

After the show had been going along at a nice, serene pace for quite a while, Anthony mentioned for the upteenth time that he was happy, and that there wasn't really a lot that makes him angry these days. Then he said, "Except...". From that moment, the decibel levels increased as Anthony went right off about what he didn't like about various current political issues. I, and a lot of the audience were quite taken by suprise by this sudden change in pace, but oh god he was so very funny and deadly serious at the same time. It was brilliant!

In the middle of this tirade, Anthony's sound guy mentioned that his time had run out. This was met with a collective, "Awww!" from the audience, and led to Anthony beating his head against the microphone in frustration. Needless to say, he continued on and in all the gig went over by about 20 minutes in total. Unreal!

This man is still bloody fantastic, and if and when he does another gig somewhere, please go and see him, as he is well worth it.