Your mileage may vary on this, but the thirst piece highlight comes in the form of the mildly notorious Fuckin’ Up, which has been a regular part of the setlist since Ragged Glory and has evolved into an interesting piece of staged presentation that really takes off if the right people with the right gestures are in Neil and Poncho's line of sight. There was a fairly substantial Winterlong contingent along the rail, and they were right into goading and gesticulation mode, which made for some interesting visuals on the big screens on either side of the stage.
Not that they were looking at the big picture, of course.
After Sydney I ran a remark about his moment of prominence past the inimitable Stub King and got a Was I? In return, which of course explains why he ended up on the screen in the first place. It's fairly obvious Neil and Poncho are having fun with the current version, and that, I suspect helped shape what followed.
I've heard my share of concert recordings over the years, and most of them have been fairly light on for the on stage repartee, but something has changed over recent years. Where once you might be lucky to get anything beyond a couple of How ya doin?s, the time machine sequence that leads into Cinnamon Girl is positively verbose, with wry remarks about those in the audience who wouldn't have been there yet as far as Zuma and Tonight's the Night are concerned.
Cinnamon Girl rocked, My My Hey Hey did likewise and you really got a sense of the mount of fun Neil and the Horse are having on stage when it gets to the obligatory encore. Perth had Roll Another Number, Adelaide got Like a Hurricane and I would have been happy to see LaH reprised in Brisbane or Sydney.
Instead, in Brisbane they led off with Opera Star (not played since the European tour in 2001) before heading off to Roll Another Number, while in Sydney two chords were all I needed to recognize Prisoners of Rock & Roll, which segued nicely into Opera Star.
Looking back, you might be inclined to think, despite Hughesy's enthusiasm, that one show is about enough, but with the interval between Sydney and the time this review makes its way onto the blog and into the Reviews section of the website there's one additional factor that suggests it's a case of too much Neil isn't nearly enough.
I refer, of course, to Wednesday's show at The Plenary, with Cortez the Killer, Dangerbird, Barstool Blues and Sedan Delivery turning up in the set list in a show that ran close to three hours.
Neil's inclined to the predictable once things have started moving but that doesn't necessarily mean he's going to stay that way. After two quite stellar shows you might be disappointed to have missed one that sailed right off into the stratosphere, but that's the way things are.
Should Neil be headed back this way with The Horse in tow, Hughesy's going, come hell or high water. Now for a triple serving of Bruce…