Changes to the old financial situation have added a slightly different angle to the travel quotient since I'm now in a position to head off when something on the concert front attracts my attention.
A concert excursion doesn't work the same way as the holidays we take in other circumstances, and are likely to be solo rather than duo experiences, light on for sight seeing and focussed on an evening's musical entertainment, which will invariably attract a review here, but I still need something to remind me of what happened around the time I saw so and so, so it makes sense to include that content hereabouts.
It does, after all, fit right into the category of Travel, albeit travel with a particular purpose.
As a general rule I like to arrive in the city where the concert's being held the day before the actual event if I'm travelling from Bowen, due to the issues that could arise with a limited number of flights operating out of Whitsunday Coast which is, of course, the most likely point of departure. If anything happens to delay your departure on the specific date you'd guess there are fallback possibilities that would still get you to the venue in question on time (assuming you can catch the equivalent flight the next day).
Those changes to the old financial situation also mean that I've got the opportunity to catch multiple concerts from the same artist, assuming they're someone I haven't seen at all (coming up, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen) or someone who's likely to vary the setlist from show to show (Elvis Costello, Little Feat) or someone who mightn't but will deliver slightly different virtuoso performances (Richard Thompson, Derek Trucks).
In that situation, assuming I've landed in the south, where the flight options offer a greater choice, the arrive the day before doesn't necessarily apply.
As far as activities after I've arrived are concerned, I'll have aimed to land by the early afternoon, and the agenda for the remainder of the day will involve dinner and something interesting to drink. In those circumstances you don't necessarily want to be close to the concert venue, so my default option for Sydney the day before is the Travelodge in Wentworth Avenue, which offers a reasonable rate, the possibility of dinner at Spice I Am just down the road and has The Oak Barrel around a convenient corner as the source of something interesting o go with the meal. Spice I Am is BYO and they also do takeaways…
So what you'll find hereabouts amounts to a debriefing after the event, something that can be checked before the next time around, and an aide memoire to go with the concert reviews on the Music Pages.
Elvis Costello and The Imposters 19 April 2011 30 January 2012