#tomstalktime

SHE'S fresh from winning five Grammy awards and and on Tuesday night, British singing powerhouse Adele took to Domain Stadium for her first performance on Australian soil. 

 The 65,000-strong crowd helped her belt out her smash hit 'Hello' as she emerged from underneath a 360 degree circular stage in an exquisite sequinned purple gown, especially designed for the Australian and New Zealand leg. 

 “Oh my god, there are so many of you,” she cackled in her thick cockney accent, in what would become the first of many authentic and hilarious interactions with the crowd. Looking visibly emotional and nervous at the sheer size of the stadium and the thousands of singing fans, 28-year-old Adele walked around the circular stage waving and greeting everyone as they gave her a welcome that was ten years in the making. 

 The set list was strong and consisted of all her signature hits and a variety of album tracks from her three award-winning albums 19, 21 and 25, as well as the Oscar-winning James Bond theme song, Skyfall, fit with a 40-piece male choir. Her vocals are nothing short of impressive and there's no denying that she sounds even better live than what she does on record. It was captivating to sit in a stadium that was bursting at the seams, yet feel like I'm in her lounge room singing a bit of Tuesday night karaoke. That's the power of Adele - her charm and humbleness shines through and her natural ability to have a chatter is a welcomed part of the show. 

 A highlight of the evening was when the songstress received a welcome to the land down under when a cockroach and a dead fly joined her on stage. "There's a cockroach on on the bloody stage, but I'm not going to freak out because you're all used to it, there's a f---ing cockroach on stage," she said, walking over to her cup of tea and hot honey, only to cry out, "there's a f---ing fly in my tea," before falling into her signature cackle and opting for water instead.

 It's clear that Adele's space in the music industry is absolutely untouched. She's at the top of her game and in just her late twenties, her voice is undoubtedly the best in the business. The power and conviction in lyric after lyric, note after note is enough to give anyone goosebumps - I sure as hell can’t wait to say 'hello' to her again very soon. 

 Adele: Perth Setlist (28/02/17)

 Hello

Hometown Glory

One And Only

’ll Be Waiting

Rumour Has It

Water Under The Bridge

I Miss You

Skyfall

Don’t You Remember

Make You Feel My Love (Bob Dylan Cover)

Send My Love (To Your New Lover)

Sweetest Devotion

Chasing Pavement

Take It All

Set Fire To The Rain

Encore:

When We Were Young

Rolling In The Deep

PARENTS: Your Christmas ‘Lie’ is the Key to a Happy Childhood 

I read an article yesterday that blew my mind. It left me baffled. Dumbfounded. Confused - and then angry. Really angry. 

The article was published in The Telegraph and featured two psychologists encouraging parents to re-think whether they should "lie" to their children about Father Christmas, citing a loss of trust between parents and their children as the reason behind it. 

"All children will eventually find out they've been consistently lied to for years, and this might make them wonder what other lies they've been told..." the article read. "Children must all find out eventually that their parents have blatantly and consistently carried on a lie for a number of years. Children may find out from a third party, or through their parents getting bored of the make-believe and making a mistake; both might affect the trust that exists between child and parent." I understand that the issue of when, where, how and exactly what to tell kids about the man in the big red suit and his trusty reindeer is tough. Heck, I distinctly remember crying when I first found out the truth. Despite those few moments of tears though, it didn’t damage my memories. It didn’t force me into a position of not wanting to celebrate Christmas anymore and it certainly didn’t make me lose trust in my parents.  

Some of the happiest moments of my childhood occurred on Christmas Eve. What harm is there in allowing a child to go shopping in preparation for an exciting visit from Santa? Why should we brutally take away that eagerness of letter-writing, carrot chopping, fruit mince pie decorating and stocking hanging? What about the delight of waking up on Christmas Day to discover that he’s been! The man from the North Pole has flown all the way inside and left gifts and crumbs behind him. Nothing can beat those moments. They’re simple. Pure. Important. 

Why are we so adamant at forcing our children to grow up so quickly? In a world that is so full of hatred and immersed in the continuous loss of innocence, why is it that we want to rob children of something so blissful and happy? I can’t help but think that it comes down to this generation of modern parents. The PC police. The over-analysers. If something isn’t broken then don’t fix it… Let’s attempt to permit our children to enjoy their childhood for as long as possible and start worrying about the harder aspects of life. Father Christmas is simple. Leave it that way.

Hitting Home| 

IT’S not every day that your friend becomes the centre of a worldwide news story. It’s not every day that you see a friend’s face and his name splashed across hundreds of online articles and news outlets. It’s not every day that you read an article with oodles of comments citing your friend’s name and criticising their actions… and it’s certainly not every day that your friend gets shot.

My high school friend, Toben Clements, has been caught in the middle of a worldwide media storm as one of the students from Curtin University shot during a holiday in the USA. As a news provider and someone with a keen interest in current affairs, I read, watch and listen to similar news stories on a daily basis… but what happens when they are concerning someone a little closer to home? Seeing my friend’s face plastered across newspapers, online news outlets and television stations was a necessary wake-up call… The people centred in these news stories are not strangers. They’re our sons, our grandsons, our brothers, nephews, our friends, students and our colleagues. They are human, and they have individual stories, personal triumphs and like all of us, they have their respective flaws. The manner in which we so effortlessly toss their names and their images around is somewhat disturbing, and it’s disappointing that it’s taken a friend to go through such a tragic ordeal for me to realise this.  

Tom’s Talk Time: “Bedwetting Haunted My Childhood” 

It was constant, uncontrollable and embarrassing... as a child and even teenager, I had a severe problem with wetting the bed. It haunted me and tarnished my self-esteem, forcing me to pull out of school camps early, or return home before sleep-over parties had finished, blaming an early wake-up for swimming or having to go out with my family as the pathetic, fictitious excuse. It was dreadfully uncomfortable and something that I wouldn’t wish upon any child.

Bedwetting is something that has caused a lot of red faces on my behalf - and a lot of washing powder for my Mum! It seems that I tried everything - I went from wearing ‘pull-ups for big kids’ as I so effortlessly described them, to walking back and forth to the bathroom pronouncing the sentence “this is where I need to go when I need to go to the toilet” over and over again, often resembling a broken record. I tried charts where I would get a special golden star for a ‘dry’ night, and a red ‘X’ if my bladder had failed me. Seven consecutive stars meant I was allowed a treat in the next shopping expedition. I think that happened two or three times a year – the rest of the time, I just couldn’t hack it. As I got older, my desperation worsened, and I tried hiring a unique buzzer that blasted an alarm as soon as I was wet, as well as leaving home at the crack of dawn once a week to attend a series of specialist appointments. None of it worked. I felt I was going around and around in circles.   

Horrifically, I remember thinking that my problem would continue for an utter eternity. There were times that I’d wake up sobbing because my bladder had failed me yet again, and I distinctly remember crossing my fingers every night, and dreaming about the day that I would be cured. Luckily for me, at the ripe old age of fifteen or sixteen, crisis somewhat averted and I began to see the light at the end of what had been a dismally dark and long tunnel. It was a slow transition period, beginning with one dry night a week, before miraculously increasing to three, four and even five dry nights. By sixteen I was fully dry, and haven’t had another episode since.  

REVIEW| “Em Rusciano is NOT a Diva” 

WITH a giant letter ‘E’ grandly positioned at the centre of the stage alongside an unstoppable showgirl entrance to The Weather Girls signature hit “It’s Raining Men” (swapped to Raining Em), a night out with Em Rusciano is one not to miss.

Donning a Kylie Minogue inspired headdress and a fabulously camp costume; Em is raw, honest and screamingly hilarious as she delves deep into her comedic banter where nothing (.. and I mean NOTHING), is off limits. Commentary on the love affair between James Packer and Mariah Carey, details of her brutal exit from Perth’s 92.9, her move from being a billboard girl to Centrelink mother living with her parents, her somewhat cringe worthy time on the 2004 season of Australian Idol, relentless stories of her excessive menstrual flow, and the excruciatingly agonising anecdote of how she gate-crashed a funeral and wound up saving the mother of the man she lost her virginity to are all incredible highlights that left the sold-out Astor Theatre in hysterics.

Her childhood dream of becoming the first person to win an Oscar, a Grammy, a Logie, a Tony and an Olympic Gold medal are talked about, with a stellar acceptance speech that launched straight into an impressive Madonna medley, followed by stalker-like fantasy of how Madonna may in fact be the comedienne’s mother.

Perhaps the most surreal moment of the show is Em’s stellar vocals. While a lot of the show is fabulously hilarious, the vocals she produced left goosebumps on the arms of everyone inside the theatre - particularly with her rendition of ‘Over the Rainbow’, dedicated to her late Grandmother. 

Em is a jack of all trades - she’s a comedian, a writer, a TV and radio presenter, a singer, MC and mother of two, but the stage is her absolute calling. Filled with enough energy to knock even the biggest diva off her perch, Em Rusciano is a force to be reckoned with - and thankfully there’s plenty more to come! 

Em Rusciano is NOT a Diva is heading to Adelaide next, followed by performances in Darwin, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and The Gold Coast.

Image: Ben Cousins, 9 News

ONCE again I find my heart breaking for Ben Cousins and his family– and once again, I find myself cringing at the merciless judgment that every day Australians feel the need to so easily cast on him. Ben has made mistakes. We are all aware of that. He shouldn’t take his position of authority so lightly and I am incredibly disappointed for his younger fans that look up to him as a phenomenal footballer.

As tragic and as easy to judge as this may be, I can’t help but see a man crying out for help.  None of us have any idea of what it must be like growing up in the public eye – that constant pressure from the media (I know, I contribute to that) and footballers must be pretty tiresome. Why is it that we feel at ease with so blatantly criticising and humiliating Ben, when we are so careful to skirt around the issues surrounding mental health when it comes to every other Australian? Mental health is a dangerous condition that has the potential to do a lot of damage and believe it or not, the stigma still runs rife through the media and in the sporting community – something that appears to be dismissed whenever Ben is spoken about.