PROM AT CANBERRA FRINGE

The joy of Canberra Fringe is that it’s an underfunded, shambling zombie echo of what, even in it’s heyday, was an underthought, slackly-curated private party for Canberra’s sketchier creative scenes. It’s been sustained years past its’ natural death by the efforts of top-notch local producers who have gotten too adept at creating miraculously good mini-festivals on insultingly low budgets. PROM is a Good Indie Pop Band that has spent years pressing on with pub gigs, recordings, stage musicals and weird performance art parties despite line-up changes, inconsistent levels of focus from the ostensible ‘band leader’ (me) and the ever-nagging awareness that we are no-one’s favorite band.

I love PROM and I love Canberra Fringe. Both are sensibly doomed in the long term. One playing inside the other seemed timely and appropriate. Really it seemed poetic but I’m not going to say that.

We played really fucking well, and tested out some narrative and persona stuff for what will be our next big PROM show. We’ll have to do it soon before Chris moves to Scotland. These are the kind of stakes that I appreciate, more and more. Photos by Adam Thomas.