For those of you who are interested, the Top 10 tracks were as follows with Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” the undisputed winner in the voting:

1. Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
2. Mr Jones – Counting Crows
3. Paradise City – Guns ‘n’ Roses
4. Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond
5. My Happiness – Powderfinger
6. Here I Go Again On My Own – Whitesnake
7. Come on Eileen – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
8. New Sensation – INXS
9. Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy – Big & Rich
10. No Rain – Blind Melon

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Needless to say I was well impressed and, although the musical style is a wee departure from the traditional gear I’m listening to these days, I hunted down more of their music on “Grooveshark” and was soon a fan!

I soon heard on the grapevine that Sharon and the band were due to make an appearance in Vancouver at The Commodore in June, but by the time I had found out, the show was sold out which left me keen, but ticket-less.

Enter Canada’s “SCENE” movie rewards program. Being a member of the club and accumulating points each time you go to see a movie does more than provide you with free movies, popcorn and drinks. Yes, you can use your points to buy entries into draws for sold out and other popular concerts in Vancouver.

So I did. I won. And thankfully I made it to catch the fantastic, incredibly energetic performance this evening. I’ve not seen a level of crowd interaction with any touring act in the past, like what I saw tonight. Enthusiastic fans were pulled from the front row and invited to dance on stage with Sharon during selected numbers. While some of the dancing skills displayed were highly questionable in execution, it was pretty cool I have to say.

I don’t know enough about Sharon’s portfolio of songs to run through what was and wasn’t covered on the set list for this evening, so I’m just going to leave you with a few pictures from the show, and with the recommendation to see the band when next they wander into your city, town or village. If you’re into her brand of music you WILL NOT be disappointed!

With your help, I want to come up with a list of say 30 tunes/anthems which you believe make for quintessential listening when buzzing the bitumen and chasing the white dashed line into the unknown distance.

STEP 1 – THE NOMINATIONS NOW CLOSED

Here’s how it will all play out:

1. Leave your top ten (10) suggested tracks in the comments section below.
2. After the next couple of weeks I’ll throw together a list of what I think are the most popular 100 or so songs (depending on what sort of response this gets).
3. I’ll list the 100 most nominated songs in a poll that you can all vote on, and together we can come up with a playlist of THIRTY (30) of the best road trip tunes as chosen by us!

This should be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to hearing about some great new tracks that I don’t know of, and also seeing what the mix is between old classics and newer tunes.

STEP 2 – THE VOTE

A huge thank you to all of you who went to the effort to submit your nominations. We hardly had any overlaps in nominations at all, meaning we have a huge and diverse list to select from.

So now for the voting. This bit’s, dead simple.

Voting is now open until midnight (PST) on the 23rd July. Simply browse your way through the full nominees list below and select your favourite 15 tracks. After you’ve done that and submitted your vote, tell your friends about it and get at least 5 other people to submit a vote if you can!

Here’s as many of the tracks that I could muster so you can listen to them all before making your vote:

Here’s the nomination list! Remember you only get to vote once!

Please note, I had to trim the odd little-known track from your submissions here and there to keep the list to 100 songs.

Please feel free to share this page with everyone you know. Just click and drag the image above to share using Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, Yahoo! or Email. It’s dead simple.

The best road trips are often defined by the quality and personality of your fellow traveler’s and I knew from the get-go that this one was going to be a cracker. Joining Chris, Andrea, and new acquaintance (friend of Adrienne and Jim’s who were already down in Washington) Emily, we set off early on Friday morning with the intention of making it across the border by 8am. Despite me holding everything up with the old “Australian-passport-caused” fingerprinting and photograph session, we made our target and were soon sitting in a great little brekky joint in Blaine called the “Seaside Bakery Café”, while we waited for the rest of the crew to catch up.

Before long, TJ, Danica and Trevor were sitting along side us in the café and everyone was getting their fill of scrambled eggs, bacon and toast – the perfect start to what we were hoping was going to be a great, sunshine-drenched weekend.

The Gorge

One of the highlights of heading down to The Gorge, is the scenic drive along the way. After blowing past Seattle to the east and leaving some pretty ordinary wet weather behind us, we headed through some really beautiful forested areas, farmland and eventually semi-desert which is when you know you are getting close to your destination. It’s once you reach the bridge over the mighty Columbia River, however, that you know you are within minutes of The Gorge’s rolling grassy camp grounds, sun, your first ice-cold beer and the start of a great evening of good music and great times!

As a bonus little surprise when we arrived at the camp ground, our two friends Adrienne and Jim (below), who had spent the previous couple of nights down in Washington camping and exploring the area, announced to us with beaming smiles that they had got engaged the night before. Knowing how much Adrienne was dreaming of the day that Jimbo was going to pop the question, this was just awesome to hear and the news lifted us all to a new level of energy that was already being generated under the beautiful deep blue skies.

With BBQ hot dogs put away, along with a good amount of beer and engagement-celebratory-tequila-shots, we packed up our blankets and made our way to the end of the camping paddock and onto the famous gravel walkway that twists its way up to the stage area.

We were all really keen to walk up the hill to the back of the amphitheater together with Trevor who was the only one amongst us who hadn’t made the trip down to the venue before. Just like the rest of us on our first time walking over the rise, his jaw dropped and goosebumps popped as he saw the stage before him with the sun setting over the Columbia River and gorge behind as a backdrop. Yup, there’s definitely something very magical about this place.

With Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers not due to hit the stage till around 8:45pm, the thousands who had gathered early on the hill in the amphitheater with us were treated to a classic warm-up performance by none-other than legend Joe Cocker. Belting out all of his signature hits like “Come Together”, “Unchain My Heart”, “With a Little Help from my Friends” and the always awesome “You Can Leave Your Hat On”, the crowd, which consisted of fans from all generations rose to their feet and were in a great mood by the time Tom Petty and his band hit the stage.

What can you say about Tom Petty… he’s a legend, his sound is timeless, and a great show is always delivered no matter when or where he performs. All the hits you would hope for and expect were in the mix on Friday night. The set list for the night looked something like this:

1. Kings Highway
2. Listen To Her Heart
3. I Won’t Back Down
4. Free Fallin’
5. Oh Well
6. Mary Jane’s Last Dance
7. Drivin’ Down To Georgia
8. Breakdown
9. Jefferson Jericho Blues
10. First Flash Of Freedom
11. Running Man’s Bible
12. I Should Have Known It
13. Don’t Pull Me Over
14. Learning To Fly
15. Don’t Come Around Here No More
16. Refugee
17. Runnin’ Down A Dream
18. Mystic Eyes
19. American Girl

Wenatchee State Forest

With a long, wild night of fun and good times behind us, we rose mid-morning on Saturday, packed up our tents and rolled out of the grassy cow paddock leaving thousands of hard-core fans behind us to enjoy a second round of Cocker and Petty on Saturday night.

Our band of merry travelers, on the other hand, were hell bent on finding a nice camp spot in the middle of the nearby Lake Wenatchee State Park where we could stretch out, chill out and soak up some rays on a sandy beach on the shores of a cool, crystal clear lake for the afternoon.

It’s exactly what we were able to do and the first few hours of the afternoon consisted of lazing on the beach, making a few quick trips below the surface of the freezing cold lake, digging into some amazing cold meat sandwiches (thanks again ladies), sipping on a few beers and even getting our hands on some double-scoop ice waffle ice-creams (still one of the best ideas you had all-day TJ!)

As the sun began to set over the distant snow-capped Cascade Mountains, we set up camp across our three reserved camp sites, set up ready for dinner and enjoyed a few rounds of cards. A couple of small chipmunks were in our camp area and were keeping a sharp eye on any stray crumbs that left the table.

They probably went nuts with whatever we had dropped around the camp table, after we all upped and left to get stuck into what is kind of becoming a tradition on these kinds of trips – Extreme Bocci. We’re not talking your average grass or gravel playing strip here. No, we play through forests, over roads, through children’s playgrounds, onto and along beaches all the while not letting any kind of natural or man-made obstacles get in our way. SO MUCH FUN!!!

Back at camp, we set about preparing for our steak, potato and salad dinner, and sat around having a laugh and just enjoyed our time in the beautiful great outdoors in that part of the world.

As the night went on, many beverages were consumed, stories were told, laughs a plenty were shared, smores (an enhanced variation on toasted marshmallows) were enthusiastically scoffed and we all made the most of an awesome pit fire that we had available to us – the perfect end to a memorable road trip weekend away with great people!

A huge congratulations again to Adrienne and Jim on their engagement and a very big personal thanks to Chris, Andrea and Emily for providing such amazing company while on the road all weekend. I can’t wait to get back out and do it all again one day soon!

Held at Vancouver’s popular outdoor “Malkin Bowl” amphitheater, Xavier Rudd, along with his recently joined backing band “Inzitaba” (bassist Tio Moloantoa and percussionist Andile Nqubezelo) had the sizable crowd dancing from the opening number with their unique brand of politically motivated blues and roots.

Xavier has an incredible portfolio of instrumental abilities which were on display in full force throughout the evening. From acoustic and electric guitars, to banjo, Weissenborn slide guitar, harmonica, various drums and an assortment of didgeridoos, he had them all covered with impressive ease – more often than not playing more than one at the same time.

Of note was the simple, yet meaningful stage backdrop consisted of the Australian Aboriginal flag, Inzitaba’s native South African flag, and the unmistakable skull and cross bone design of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – an inspirational, international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. It was pretty cool to see these guys being supported.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, showers eventually found their way over Stanley Park, and the final couple of numbers of the regular set were a little damp, but the energy and enthusiasm of both the crowd and artist did not waver, ensuring that a great night out in the park was had by all!

Joining thousands (I’m sure Whistler must be a ghost-town tonight) for the completely sold out gig, we were all treated to a textbook, non-stop delivery of nearly every track off their fantastic debut album “Conditions” including “Rest”, “Fader”, “Down River”, “Soldier On” and their international hit “Sweet Disposition”.

Update: An old friend of mine, Katherine, just sent me the set list from the night (below) which she has also written a blog post on here.

1. Intro
2. Rest
3. Fader
4. Fools
5. Down River
6. Love Lost
7. Soldier On
8. Sweet Disposition
9. Resurrection
10. Drum Song
11. Rabbit Song
12. Science of Fear

The highlight for just about everyone in the room, was definitely their final song of the regular set as they combined the haunting track “Resurrection” with the raw, rhythmic power of “Drum Song” which turned into a good old jam session with lead man Dougy Mandagi joining in with his own water covered floor tom at the front of stage. Awesome!

With the boys leaving the stage after the last song, the crowd made it more than blatantly obvious that they wanted more, stomping on the wooden ballroom floor with purpose in a way that I’ve not experienced at The Commodore before. Apparently, there were glasses falling off tables, so that should give you an idea of how much the place was rocking! It was like the spirit of “Drum Song” leaped off the stage and manifested itself in the crowd… ok, that’s deep, even by my standards! Haha!

A well received encore performance which featured a new single, “Rabbit Song”, was the perfect way to end the night and I, along with my friends in attendance (Chris, Andrea, Hazel & Andrew) all went home with ringing ears and big smiles – the result of a really enjoyable night out.

Here’s a few pics from the night…

Playing to a packed and sold out house, John Nicky & Byron performed an outstanding set (will post the full set list if and when I get my hands on it) consisting of a well received blend of songs from their new album “April Uprising” mixed in with a bunch of their all-time favourite tunes like “Used to Get High”, “Better Than”, “Something’s Gotta Give”, “Zebra” and more.

Highlights for me were definitely John’s now famous solo 12-string performance of the powerful and beautiful “Ocean” and a great little Banghra-style breakdown the boys pulled out during a rendition of “Treat Yo Mama”.

As I always like to do when I’m entertained long before the headlining act hits the stage, I have to give credit to tonight’s openers from Boston, Massachusetts – a solid trio called “State Radio”. Some people may be familiar with the reggae influenced single “Right Me Up” from their 2006 offering “Us Against The Crown”. I can say without hesitation that they are definitely worth checking out.

State Radio clearly have a healthy following, as I found myself surrounded in the opening set by a dozen fans who have been following the band around the US north-west having watched the boys perform in both Portland and Seattle a few nights previous. Pretty excited about being in Vancouver too, they were.

So yup, I definitely had a great night out filled with fantastic tunes that kept the sizable crowd jumping until the final encore number. I’m SERIOUSLY looking forward to “The Temper Trap” on Tuesday! I’ll be out with a good crew of people I convinced to come along with me, so I’ll be back to tell you all about that one later in the week!

In an announcement that has shocked Australia, and their hoards of fans world wide, Bernard Fanning and his multi-award winning band “Powderfinger” announced a short time ago in a press conference that they will split at the end of the year following what will be their most extensive Australian tour yet.

Sadly, the boys from Brisbane will play their last ever concert together at the conclusion of their “Sunsets Tour” in Ballarat (oddly enough) on Saturday, October 16th. While the concerts in all the major capital cities across Australia will sell out in seconds, you can bet that the Ballarat show will be the hottest concert ticket in Australia this year.

During this morning’s press conference, Bernard read out the following statement:

With the completion of our last album, Golden Rule, we feel that we have said all that we want to say as a musical group. We firmly believe that it is our most complete and satisfying album and can’t think of a better way to farewell our fans than with music that we all believe in and also with, hopefully, our best tour to date. (source: www.powderfinger.com)

Together Bernard, Ian, Darren, JC and Cogsy have released 7 studio albums and amassed a stunning 15 Australian Record Industry Awards (ARIAs) across five different categories over the past 16 years. They are, without question, one of the most iconic domestic Australian bands from over the past 15 years with a swag of great hits-come-Aussie-anthems like “Pick You Up”, “The Day You Come”, “Passenger”, “Sunsets”, “Love Your Way”, “Head Up In The Clouds”, “All of the Dreamers” and of course, “On My Mind” (see below).

They are, and will forever be one of my all-time favourite acts – that goes without question. All I ever wanted was to see the guys play, one day, here in Vancouver… or even up in Whistler (“Little Australia”) for that matter. Just yesterday I tweeted that I hoped that’s what today’s press conference was being called to announce. Sadly, my dream seems certain to never become a reality.

*sob, sob*

For those of you lucky enough to be in Australia for the final shows, tickets for the “Sunsets Tour” will go on sale on at 9am Friday 30th April. Check out the Ticketmaster Australia website or the band’s official website for more details.

The blend of new music discovery through a kind of “game” is lethal! Combine that with the fact that it’s absolutely free to use and you can even, in some instances, download free new tracks that you find while exploring… oh God… I need therapy…

The site is presented using a stunning and free-flowing combination of AJAX and Flash (geek terms for “cool technology”), and while there is plenty of options and features to get your head around when you first get in there, navigation is intelligently done and it doesn’t take much effort to get to just about any part of the site that you want/need to go.

Before you jump in head first (and I highly suggest that you do), let me try and dissect some of the more common components that help you explore your way through the music, participate in the gaming aspect and reward the talented acts that bring you the continual, streaming entertainment.

I’m not going to cover EVERYTHING because that would take the fun out of exploring for you, but I will cover the basics – here we go:

Sign up for an account

In order to participate and get the full TheSixtyOne experience, you need to sign up for a free account. By signing up, you’ll be able to help vote music into positions of better exposure on the site, develop a reputation as a music guru with good taste, and unlock a wealth of other features throughout the site.

Go here to get started: www.thesixtyone.com

Explore the music

Exploring through the tunes is dead easy to do with little effort, but there are also some options available for you to hone in on the kind of tunes that you like!

The easiest way to find what’s hot is by simply going to TheSixtyOne’s home page where a playlist of random, top rated tracks that you can sift through using the green navigation arrows on each side of the screen.

If you’d rather stick to the really popular stuff, the really new stuff, the currently hot tracks, or even a particular genre or mood of music, you can get to your desired playlists using the easy navigational options at the top right of the site.

Band information

While listening to each song you come across, you have the option of viewing all sorts of information relating to the track such as bio information about the band or artist, song lyrics, tour dates, tweets from the band or artist, and view lists of other songs from the same artist or similar tracks from other artists. There’s plenty to see and do while listening – that’s for sure.

Make it fun – complete a quest!

The gaming aspect of the website, which I mentioned earlier, can be found when you check out the “Quests”

Each quest challenges you to listen to and discover new music in different ways by exploring different genres, listening to your favourite discovered tracks multiple times, listening to newly released songs, or by simply to use the service at a given time of day (eg. “The Night Owl” quest).

Currently, as at the time of writing this post, I have the following quests that I am attempting to complete:

• Pour Your Hearts Out
  Max out your hearts on five or more of your favorite songs. (Level 5 required).
• Night Owl
  Listen to the first five songs of posted between 10PM to 4AM (your local time). Why? Because songs that get posted at the weirdest hours deserve a little extra help.
• Creative Commons
  Listen to seven or more songs with the creative commons license.
• In The Mood
  Listen to four different moods on the home page. (At least five minutes for each mood.)
• Caution – Very Hot!!
  Listen to seven songs on the first pages of the hot tab of the home page under popular.

Completing a quest

So what happens when you complete a quest? Well first of all your quest list is where you’ll find out about whether or not you have reached the allocated level of participation, before the quest is considered to be complete. Take for instance the “A Reputable Listener” quest below. I completed this quest this afternoon as evidenced by the “20/20 reputation earned” indicator in green. Now all you have to do is click the “Finish” button at the bottom right of the panel and your “two hearts” (in this case) and reputation points are added to your profile.

Completing quests also unlocks new quests… hence the super addictive nature of the whole concept. And your reward during all of this? At the very least you’re getting the opportunity to listen to great new music from bands and artists you more than likely haven’t heard of before… for free!

What are “hearts”?

Hearts are like “votes” in TheSixtyOne world. You can use your awarded hearts to vote for songs in a bid to move them up the charts and closer to the top play position on the front page of the site.

What are “reputation points”?

Successful quests also earn you experience or “reputation” points. These reputation points, as they build in your profile, help you move up TheSixtyOne “levels”. The higher your level, the more powerful your votes through “hearts” become.

Achievements

So what is this all working towards? Well if you click on your profile link (bottom left of screen) and check out the “Achievements” panel in the information box (bottom right), you will get an idea of what you need to do to unlock new levels and get a sense of just how far you’ve made it in the total TheSixtyOne experience.

The screen shot on the right shows my “Achievements” panel as it stands right now and also indicates that I’ve so far unlocked 4% of the site. GO ME!

Share & get social

Like any modern website worth its salt these days, there’s a selection of tools available to help you let all of your friends know about the great tracks that you are discovering. Connect with Facebook, Twitter or simply email song links to your family and friends.

Finally, since you get your own profile when you sign up, there’s also the opportunity for you to start socially connecting with other TheSixtyOne users. The search feature isn’t all that useful for finding other users to communicate with, but reading through the comments left on songs you like by other users, helps you find new people to “follow”.

So there you have it, there should be enough introductory information there for you to get started. Make sure you come find me if you do sign-up. Not surprisingly, my user name is “masey” and you can find me here:

www.thesixtyone.com/listener/masey

I’m off to watch the rest of the Canucks game right now… then I’m going to have a crack at the “Night Owl” quest! Come join me and let’s start uncovering some great new music together!

See you in TheSixtyOne!

With the stage surrounded by a large white sheet, John took his position on stage and kicked things off by breaking into his current signature hit “Heartbreak Warfare”. As he did so, an impressive video sequence was projected onto the sheets as they opened to reveal the band. Actually, the entire night’s video and light show was pretty cool – much better than I remember from John’s previous visits to town.

The night’s set list was pretty diverse drawing on tracks from Mayer’s past and present studio albums. There were a few notable omissions like “Your Body is a Wonderland”, but I was pretty stoked with what was on offer for the night:

1. Heartbreak Warfare
2. Good Love is On the Way
3. Vultures
4. Perfectly Lonely
5. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
6. Assassin
7. Waiting on the World to Change
8. Somebody Loves You (New Song)
9. All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye
10. No Such Thing
11. Neon
12. Ain’t No Sunshine
13. Why Georgia
14. Half of My Heart > Don’t Stop Believing
15. Who Says (Encore)
16. Gravity (Encore)

Highlights for me were the insane light and video show accompanying a wicked performance of “Assassin” and the well received mashup of “Half of My Heart” and Canadian favourite song “Don’t Stop Believing” (Journey cover – see below*). Mid-set, and at the start of a 4-5 song acoustic set, Mayer revealed a new track called “Somebody Loves You” which was pretty impressive I have to say. I guess we’ll be seeing that one released on his next album.

Also of note was drummer Steve Jordan’s amazing solo lead-in to “Waiting on the World To Change”. It cranked on for over 5 minutes and, being a former drummer myself, I (along with a few thousand others) were completely captivated by the spectacle. The accompanying camera work, projected up onto the large video back of screen was a definite addition to this moment*:

As per usual, John’s set was punctuated by his well-received (going on the female screams echoing around the stadium) Vancouver gushing banter. He also proved he’s still got that quick wit thing going on when he looked out into the crowd, spotted a young woman brandishing a sign that proclaimed that she had traveled several thousand miles, “just for a kiss.”

John’s reply, “Sorry, ladies, I’m gonna need that in kilometres.”

There’s not a whole lot of video that’s hit the web from the performance last night, as yet, but I’ll update this post with some of the better stuff as it trickles in. In the meantime, here’s a grab from John’s blazing rendition of “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”.

Special mention must also go to the energetic “Michael Franti” who opened the night at GM Place along with his band “Spearhead”. Although the crowd really didn’t seem to raise themselves to his level of enthusiasm, he hopped bare footed around the stage and took off into the darkness of the crowd on many occasions delivering his brand of reggae-infused beats face-to-face with anyone and everyone who joined him in the aisles.

His set concluded back on stage with his monster hit “Say Hey (I Love You)” during which he invited anyone willing to come up on stage and jam with him. I’ve never really seen anything like it before and I spent half the performance wondering how many kittens the stadium’s security team were having throughout (where the hell does that saying come from anyway???).

All in all, Franti did his job by getting the crowd going (well his faithful army of followers anyway) and warming up the stage for the man that everyone was obviously in the house to see last night – John Mayer.

Being relegated to the “nose-bleed” section of the stadium for the night along with my friends, getting any decent shots of John going through his paces on stage was a futile exercise, so the shots listed below are courtesy of Flickr photographer Noah Bloom who appears to have had “rockstar” seats somewhere up in the first few rows.

* A big thanks to my mate Jen for a couple of the videos posted above. Evidently she had better seats than me too!