Given Bob Brozman's explanation that each number had a defined beginning and a predetermined ending but we're not sure how we're going to get there it could well have been worth catching the previous night's appearance in Airlie and the following night's gig in Townsville, but we haven't quite reached that level of fandom.
Yet.
Discussion concerning the world's top exponents of the guitar is the sort of thing that's likely to wander on into the small hours without reaching a conclusion, but I suspect Brozman and Lang are two names that'd be likely crop up in any informed discussion, and the opportunity to catch both from the front row one night in Bowen definitely qualifies as one of my greatest musical experiences.
As was the experience of catching Richard Thompson from the front row in the Tivoli early in 2006. While Brozman and Lang would possibly be chances in the aforementioned discussion, I'd have very severe doubts about the credibility of anyone who placed Thompson outside the top twenty.
Actually, if you created a list of the top hundred guitarists in acoustic and electric mode, as well as a top hundred songwriters Thompson is one of the very few individuals who'd qualify for all three lists.
Again, in hindsight, I could easily have caught multiple shows on the tour by flying south, spending a couple of days with my parents on the Gold Coast, slipping down to Byron for one show, commuting to Brisbane the following day and catching a train up to Eumundi for a third show before returning to base via the Gold Coast.
But that's with the benefit of hindsight. After an extremely frustrating hour or so trying to access the ticket sales website (tickets for the Australian Open went on sale the same morning) I ended up grabbing two, figuring that I'd find someone who could use the other one if Madam decided she wasn't interested in going.
Once she'd decided that, no, she wasn't going, I started to look for someone who'd be interested in the other ticket in what had turned out to be the front row slightly left of centre (like Hughesy's politics).