MR BUNGLE & Neil Hamburger
Macquarie University, Sydney
24 March 2000
by Kim

Arriving early was definitely a good idea. With our position of about 5th in the line secured, two of my friends and I decided to do a bit of snooping. What we discovered was the band doing soundcheck - on the other side of a set of glass doors. Nice. Half an hour later and soundcheck well and truly over, we headed back to the now extremely long line. Soon we were in the venue, securing our positions.

Neil Hamburger. You either love him or hate him. And I can't help but love his crass, vulgar lack of humour. He is the master of the tacky one-liner. If only the volume wasn't so loud that you thought your head was going to explode everytime he cleared his throat (which he did every few seconds), though that might've been because I was standing right in front of the speakers... After introducing "Mr. Bungle......'s equipment!" several times, Hamburger buggered off and we were then allowed to watch the actual members of Bungle fiddle with that very equipment. Finally after all the teasing the guys made their impressive, costumed entrance, and show began. Most of them were wearing hawaiian shirts and flower necklaces, while Mike Patton (singer) also had on a sailor hat and white gloves and Danny Heifetz (drummer) wore full cricketer garb - pads and helmet included.

After making sure that we were ready for "Some fucking heavy metal!" Bungle opened with an Ennio Morricone cover which, while amazing, was anything but metal. :) They continued to play mostly from the current album 'California', plus a selection from their first two albums, and a few covers, including a remixed version of 'My Ass Is On Fire' from their self-titled album which Patton closed with a few lines from that Jennifer Lopez song (forgive me for not knowing the name).

Patton's voice was perfect all night, and I won't bother trying to described the talent the rest of the band posses'. Bär proved that he is master of all instruments, playing keyboards, saxophone, flute and who know's what else, as well as taking over bass duties for 'Retrovertigo'. Their final song was the extremely appropriate 'Merry Go Bye Bye'. But bass player Trevor Dunn topped it by ending by stripping to his boxers and throwing his clothes into the audience. Heifetz, not to be outdone, smashed his drumkit with a cricktet bat. A perfect ending to the night, and the tour.

Not for everyone though. Those of us who hung around after the show were lucky enough to get to hang out with the entire band for about an hour - even the elusive Mike Patton made an appearance. They were all very nice and happy to sign autographs and pose for photos and answer all manner of questions. I got all my cd booklets signed by all the members and gained some very interesting info about various members' upcoming projects. Now that's the perfect ending to an already excellent evening.