Inspiration: The 18th Commonwealth Games
Created: Mon 27 Mar 2006 13:41
I'm not into the whole sports thing. But it's been difficult not to get a little bit caught up in the excitement of having the Commonwealth Games going on in your home town. So whilst I didn't make it along to any of the sporting events, I did head out with Jud on Saturday evening to the festival portion of the Games spectacular, with the intention of seeing Bollywood at the Bowl, starring Indian singing and film sensation Sunidhi Chauhan. We arrived at the Bowl at 6pm, a full hour and a half before the scheduled starting time, and found that the queue to get into the free event snaked across the gardens for ages and ages. It took us ten minutes to find the end of the queue, and when we joined it, a volunteer with a megaphone was proclaiming "if you join the queue now, it is very extremely unlikely that you will get in". We decided to wait, and half an hour later, as our position in the queue wound past the end again, we heard the woman saying "do not even bother to join this queue, there is absolutely no hope of you getting in". So we waited restlessly for an hour and a half, but managed to make it in just as Indira Naidoo announced that the show was beginning. Nice one.
The Indian performers do not do things by halves, and they most certainly do not believe that "less is more". It's all about colour and movement, with frenetic music and high pitched vocals. The atmosphere created was great, and it made for a very fun night. I enjoyed watching all the kids jumping about the place and trying to mimic the dance moves. I also enjoyed the guys behind us, who were clearly in love with Sunidhi Chauhan, and couldn't contain their excitement.
After we left the Bowl, we went for a walk along the banks of the Yarra, and checked out some of the 71 fish of the Commonwealth. We got to see the light and sound show, and then just as we were thinking of heading over to Flinders Street station to fight our way onto a train, there were fireworks going off, so we had to stay and watch those. It's difficult to explain the buzz that was going on in the city, but even the people in Melbourne who haven't caught games fever sports-wise were out to have a great time and enjoy their city going a little wild for a couple of weeks.
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