Children of the eighties united to see Peter Combe and The Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band take to the ANU Bar stage on a miserable, raining, Sunday night in Canberra. Newspaper hats and toffee apples reigned supreme.

Local comedian and 2007 Green Faces winner Tom Gibson kicked the night off to the excitable crowd with some stand up comedy. Certainly a different way to start a gig and the crowd were promptly reminded this was the over ages show rather than the family matinee held earlier in the day with Gibson’s crude jokes and regular swearing. Gibson covered glamour topics such as suicide bombers, breast feeding, deaf olympics and catholicism. But he did his job and by the end of his twenty minute set the crowd had built and were appropriately warmed. It was unfortunate there was such a long wait between Gibson and the main event with the crowd getting a little impatient (it was Sunday night after all).

Eventually The Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band took to the stage to the crowd’s delight, playing a moody extended intro to Big Yellow Ball smartly demonstrating that these guys are seriously talented musicians. Before long an overly excited ‘man of the moment’ Peter Combe bounced onto stage to the screaming fans delight. For a moment I thought I was back at Getaway Plan surrounded by thirteen year old girls. But no, the crowd was full of ‘my people’, twenty-something’s reminiscing their childhood’s and the late eighties.

Peter Combe and the gang played a mammoth set covering all of the album’s; Songs for Little Kids (1982), Spaghetti Bolognaise (1985), Toffee Apple (1987), Newspaper Mama (1988) and of course Chopsticks (1989). In between songs Combe would tell a charming story of how the song came about and lovely anecdotes about his own children, embarrassing son and guitarist Tom Combe in the meantime. Highlights of course included; Tadpole Blues, Toothbrush , Newspaper Mama, Spaghetti Bolognese, and Mr. Clickety Cane.

It is difficult to describe the palpable excitement in the crowd, the photos tell the story the best as you really need to see the sea of homemade paper hats to really believe it. This was a great night of music with the Juicy Juicy Green Grass Band really ramping up the sound that moves from jazz and blues to Queen to Pink Floyd-esque tunes. The crowd were singing and dancing as if no one was watching, proving that feeling five is fine.

It was a cathartic experience, and for two hours or so my complicated life was simplified by the happy tunes and silly lyrics of my childhood. It’s amazing what washing your face in orange juice can do for a girl.