musicElectric Empire
Collaboration is an art Melbournian musicians really manage to nail. Joining the likes of soulsters The Bamboos and the Ray Mann Three super group (two distinct words in an un-Jack-Whitian... Read More »
musicFirst Aid Kit
Should you trip up and graze your knee, First Aid Kit will numb the pain. In fact, the mesmerizing voices of these Scandinavian sisters could act as an alternative pain-killer... Read More »
playBecky Sharp's Vanity Fair Vintage Markets
Becky Sharp is pretty, clever at living luxuriously above her means and ruthless; thus, basically a perfect personification of vintage shopping. Lovely things can be even lovelier when someone else paid... Read More »
musicSupa Funn
If you’re going to make a racket, it may as well be a Mad one. With a keen revival of the Supa Funn party variety, innovative underground crew Mad Racket... Read More »
musicChildren Collide
There's something a wee bit schadenfreude about the image of a bunch of little kids running around banging into each other. I don't know if that's actually what the kids... Read More »
musicPowderfinger
If you were born before 1990, a well-spun "the first time I saw Powderfinger" story holds nearly the same cachet as a "the first time I did it" story. In... Read More »
artmusicFBi's Changing Lanes Festival
Renowned for bringing us some of the best music played on radio, FBi has now announced for your pleasure the Changing Lanes Festival, a funraiser which will take place in... Read More »
thinkfastBREAK
I love a versatile breakfast — one that can overflow into brunch or snuggle you in with a night-capping brinner. But have you heard of this recent brinnervation? Vibewire Youth... Read More »
musicParklife 2010
At the ripe old age of 10, Parklife is starting to sprout a few grey hairs. So, to prove that old age can only make this festival a little more... Read More »
musicRufus Wainwright
Master of the implied jazz hands, Rufus Wainright returns to Sydney in October to play an intimate man-and-piano show at the the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Son of the... Read More »
musicSarah Blasko
Nothing disappointing has ever come from a Sarah Blasko album. Her songs are sweet but never naive, and her propensity to write about personal battles with a voice as strong... Read More »
musicStereosonic
I'm sorry, Splendour who? In the wake of the whirlwind wow that pervaded this year's uber-festival, Stereosonicis striking and strutting out, as Australia's annual electronic music festival amps up for... Read More »
musicBlondie + Pretenders
If you missed out on nabbing tickets for the Blondie and Pretenders tour (the first two Sydney shows sold out in a matter of days) we’ve got good news: an... Read More »
musicGorillaz
The bomb has dropped: Gorillaz are packing their virtual suitcases for a first-ever tour of Australia. Mysterious bass player Murdoc Niccals, demonic drummer Russel Hobbs, girly guitarist Noodle (who was... Read More »
getawaymusicPeats Ridge 2010
Fancy seeing in the New Year under the stars, dancing to live music on a soft green meadow tucked away deep within an emerald rainforest? Not so keen on traveling... Read More »
musicField Day 2011
Walk the streets of London or NYC on the first day of the year and you'll find only emptied cold streets echoing to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. But... Read More »
musicThe Chemical Brothers
It's all well and good to blast 'Hey Boy Hey Girl' at maximum decibels from your boom-box every now and then, but some might say it is a vital necessity... Read More »
Ongoing Events
performingIntersection
Surry Hills is a familiar terrain to many of us: late at night, wandering home in search of that soft, warm pillow. Yet to an unlucky few these lonely streets... Read More »
performingTusk Tusk
There's something refreshing about these particular angsty youths. They show so little sign of that neologism-spinning, tech-tuned, so-sharp-you'll-cut-yourself dialect contrived for young characters and expected of young authors, they're practically... Read More »
filmIsraeli Film Festival
The seventh Israeli Film Festival is taking place in Sydney this week. Showcasing an exciting, diverse range of films, the programme includes the controversial Eyes Wide Open, which navigates the... Read More »
artPop Up Alphabet Co-Op
If Willy Wonka were a typographer, this would be his chocolate factory. His waterfall would not be made of chocolate but of ampersands, his cups would be full of T's,... Read More »
artAlfred Stieglitz: the Lake George years
This is the first significant Australian showing of Alfred Stieglitz's work and contains more than 150 of the finest prints of his photos. Alfred Stieglitz is important in a way... Read More »
filmThe Nothing Men
Producer and co-star Martin Dingle Wall calls The Nothing Men "a rusty nail, one inch punch of a film," and there's honestly no better way to describe it. Set in... Read More »
filmSouth Solitary
The first thing that strikes you about South Solitary is its visual splendor. Gorgeous cinematography and unshowy period production and costume design effortlessly draw the audience into Meredith's (Miranda Otto)... Read More »
artfreemusicperformingVerge Festival 2010
Verge is strange. That's one of the best things about it. A silent room churns with frenetic dancers, hopping and bobbing to a common beat. Comedians push to entertain a... Read More »
artfilmfree808.838 / grandfather paradox
Ms&Mr are a fortunate unity. A two-person singular-entity pursuing a single-minded dual obsession with sentimental film and science fiction. Continuing to write their shared history, lived in the parallel dimension... Read More »
filmThe Sydney Underground Film Festival
Is it that time again already? The Sydney Underground Film Festival is back; bigger and better than ever! If you thought Harmony Korine couldn't out-do Julien Donkey Boy and Gummo,... Read More »
filmReel Anime Film Festival
Those with a passion for anime have something a little more than a passion. Obsession is perhaps a better word. So while I may be frustrated waiting for the next... Read More »
filmThe Special Relationship
Longed to see the grandeur and mythmaking of American drama combined with the British penchant to satirise, depict government by fools, strip away the stateliness of 'great men' and film... Read More »
artfreeMimi Kelly
Mimi Kelly's works linger in your mind. Combining a gorgeous subject, a glossy fashion aesthetic, slasher movie gore and silver-lined photographic paper, these New Works imprint in subtle ways. Kelly... Read More »
artfreeBrook Andrew: The Cell
You'll need to take off your shoes, store anything sharp and change into one of the hooded suits that hang beside The Cell before you're allowed into it. This reflects... Read More »
performingGwen in Purgatory
When you enter she's already there, sitting small and restless amid the expanse of cool, eggshell-white tile, beige packing boxes and gleaming appliances. This room is a model of edge-of-town... Read More »
artPaths to Abstraction 1867-1917
An exhibition-meets-art-history-lesson, Paths to Abstraction traces the transformation of the art world over a 50-year period. While the exhibition follows a narrative, it is not a linear one; it tells... Read More »
artfreeShane Cotton: Smashed Myth
Trouble's brewing in Shane Cotton's Smashed Myth. In just over 40 square metres of canvas, Cotton (the renowned Maori artist of, most recently, Biennale of Sydney fame) has made a... Read More »
performingAugust: Osage County
The Steppenwolf Theatre Company is theatrical genius. Their production of company member Tracy Letts' pulitzer-prize winning play August: Osage County, is extraordinarily good. I mean, look at the set —... Read More »
artfilmmusicperformingplaythinkSydney Fringe Festival
Ugly ducklings, scapegoats, white crows, black sheep — farmyards sure know how to single out the atypical. Thank goodness the humans of the Inner West know how to celebrate furry... Read More »
filmperformingplaythinkBetween The Lines
Reading between the lines is an underrated life skill. Sarcasm or honest concern? Compliment or sexual innuendo? Luckily, Griffin Theatre has chosen to spell it out for us.Between The Lines... Read More »
filmThe Killer Inside Me
If we are to believe cinema, murder is a game of cat and mouse. Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me has a cat — Lou Ford (Casey Affleck), a sheriff... Read More »
filmRacecourse Drive-in
In almost any American movie worth its weight, there's a great scene set at a drive-in. Think Grease, Twister, Accidents Happen and many more. The lesson to be learnt is... Read More »
filmScott Pilgrim vs. the World
Years of hipster geekdom have led to this, a film directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Spaced), starring Michael Cera (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Juno,... Read More »
artfreeGrove
In the Bible, people are made from ribs and soil. In Mexico, it's corn. In Japan, a baby gets found in a stalk of bamboo. Loss and grief aren't usually... Read More »
filmFour Lions
A comedy about suicide bombers sounds like a tough sell by any stretch of the imagination. But when that imagination stems from British satirist Chris Morris, there is some sort... Read More »
filmCairo Time
Beloved character actor Patricia Clarkson (High Art, Pieces of April, The Station Agent) finally steps onto centre stage in Ruba Nadda’s luscious Egyptian love story. Actually 'love story' doesn’t do... Read More »
filmperforming2009/10 New York Met Opera Season
While publicly we may snub our noses at the silver spoons of high culture, we all secretly desire to dust off our hats, don our coats and march off to... Read More »
filmFather of My Children
The French love of cinema is given vibrant new depth in Mia Hanson-Love's reverent ode. The writer-director's sophomore film follows charming film producer and joyous family man Gregoire Canvel (Louis-Do... Read More »
artRene Vaile: Just Treasure
I learnt this week that the Queen Victoria Building has a time capsule. It was installed after the restoration of the building in the mid-1980s and won't be opened for... Read More »
artObject Gallery Spring Series
For ten weeks Object Gallery is flinging open it's doors and heading into the Surry Hills springtime sunshine with a sequence of 14 collaborative showings with artists, designers, filmmakers and... Read More »
filmGoing the Distance
Going the Distance may not exactly rock the conventions of the rom-com, but it is a refreshingly vibrant addition to the genre. So while the meet-cute, montages and requisite emotional... Read More »
filmThe Kids Are All Right
How does that saying go? 'The only functional family is one you haven’t met yet.' This certainly holds for Lisa Cholodenko's (High Art, Laurel Canyon) latest filmic family, made up... Read More »
filmTomorrow, When the War Began
If anything is going to get us over our cultural cringe, it must be this serious, big-budget-ish adaptation of the Tomorrow series, a collection of YA novels that's as dear... Read More »
artIn The Balance: Art For A Changing World
Honestly, I'm kind of sceptical about this sort of thing. Putting on a show about environmental crises at the MCA is comparable to putting out a zine about being shy... Read More »
artfreeThe Indian Empire, Multiple Realities
Exploring the delicate nature of contact between cultures, The Indian Empire, Multiple Realities draws together various representations of India and foreigners in India. In bringing together both local and outsider... Read More »
performingRobin Williams
In any other profession an avalanche of heart surgery, cocaine addictions, extramarital relations, divorce and alcoholism would be enough to warrant throwing in the towel and considering a serious life... Read More »
artPrimavera 2010
Across the first two levels of the MCA things are being re-rendered, repositioned, re-presented and reduced. Banal snapshots from Flickr and Google Image are finely replicated in watercolour by Jackson... Read More »
artplayThe 80s are back
Bleached perms. Feathered earrings and feathered hair. Acid-wash. Ra-ra skirts. Rayban Wayfarers. Swatch watch envy. Eyeliner for all. Crop tops over leotards. Bangles, tons of bangles. They may be 80s... Read More »
getawaymusicMeredith Music Festival 2010
For 20 years in the festival business, Aunty Meredith is looking pretty damn spritely for her age. With ballots already overwhelmed, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the wonderfully... Read More »
artplaythinkCreating the Look: Benini and Fashion Photography
There was once a time when fashion photography was about trying to get a clear, objective, crinkle-free shot of a garment. Now we know it as creating an atmosphere, telling... Read More »
artSin City: crime & corruption in 20th-century Sydney
The good, the bad and the alluringly ugly are all currently on show at the Justice & Police Museum, rather good timing for an exhibition about Sydney's underworld, given the... Read More »
filmAnimal Kingdom
Although reincarnation seems appealing if you were to you come back as, say, a lion, it's perhaps slightly less so when you consider that you might end up a cockroach.... Read More »
filmCreation
What are ideas anyway? They're those big, abstract tangles floating above our heads that we pull down and argue about now and then, right? Most of the time we're too... Read More »
artfreegetawayJames Turrell: Within, without
James Turell, a Californian artist who has worked with light and perception as his media and subject matter since the 1960s, apparently studied perceptual psychology, mathematics, astronomy and geology at... Read More »
Playground Blog
How Do You Like Your Coffee: Decaffeinated or Defecated?
We’re a perverse lot, us humans. Tread on a footpath turd or discover an unflushed log and we’ll emit high-pitched girly squeals. But we’ll quite happily fork out big bucks... Read More »
Twitter Updates
The Concrete Playground Daily is out http://paper.li/PLAYGROUNDnews - featuring @TEDchris @GOOD @nytimesarts
4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Starting next Friday: literally HUNDREDS of plays, bands, exhibitions and other miscellaneous performances at your doorstep -...
10 hours ago
10 hours ago
The Concrete Playground Daily is out http://paper.li/PLAYGROUNDnews - featuring @GritFX @BrekkieOnBridge @dailytelegraph @GOOD
10 hours ago
10 hours ago
@ascolour No probs, cool project!
10 hours ago
10 hours ago
Calling all friends and well-wishers of Bon Iver et al. Here is your new favourite band - http://ow.ly/2ylpz
11 hours ago
11 hours ago
