Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve actually brought Bomb Collar to Melbourne once before.

A bit less than a year ago I came and did a an alternate, 20-minute version of the show at The Village in Edinburgh Gardens. It was an extra-comedic spin on the story based around just three of the eight songs. I plugged the Last Singer into a completely different, time-travel-based plot and used the whole thing as an excuse to improve my spontaneous crowd work. That version of Bomb Collar has been somewhat sequelised in my recent twitter posts. I think most sequels would work better in tweet form.

Two shows at the Village. Four in Canberra. One In Newcastle. One in Manila. Two in Wellington. By the end of next week I’ll have nearly doubled that again. That’s the sure part.

Of course I hope that this is the best run yet. That the character pops and stays with you. That it’s clean in the right ways and complicated in the right ways. Maybe most of all that you like the songs.

All of the bodies

Shot Into The Ocean

All Of My Family Are There

I’m Made Of Tears

I’m Made Of Water

I Could Have Been Born

Anywhere

Tear Down The Ceiling That Holds Back The Sea

Let It Rain Down On Me

Let It Rain Down On Me

Come Back

Please

Rain Down On Me

Rain Down On Me

The best way to influence to future is to try to predict it. Everything you predict will be wrong and therefore eliminated from the possibilities of what the future can be.

Last night my producer and I were finalizing the Melbourne Fringe version of the Last Pop Singer’s costume. The Bomb Collar itself does a lot of heavy lifting visuals-wise, but on it’s own doth not a future-guy make. It’s been an ongoing process of juggling the character traits- he’s from a burnt-out future, he’s an entertainer, he’s from the Deep Sea, he’s coming apart at the seams, he’s playing for The Troops. Previous versions of the costume have veered harder in the direction of warped ‘national-dress’ but this time we’re zooming in on ‘post-apocalyptic pop-star’. Which involves judging what clothing items available today might persist 90 years from now. We’ve made our judgments, rendering them definitively wrong in the process.

It’s been a similar approach with the music. I made a conscious decision that music in this future has eroded to it’s bare-bones, reduced to cut-price version of it’s most essential elements. But what are those elements? I made a selfish call that they would be overwrought pop melodies and Suicide-esque synth presets. My platonic dream of the musical future, which now thanks to me will never be the one that comes to pass.

If I Reach The Farthest Bend

Your Song Can Pull Me Back Again

We’ll All Be Gone When Our Live End

But Songs Will Light Our Way Again