Willie's Bar and Grill

At first glance, Willie's Bar and Grill looks rather nondescript... there's a bus rushing past on the front and the front cover blurb simply says "a rock 'n' roll tour of North America in the age of terror". I'd walk past this book all the time in the bookstore and would just glance over it, not really giving it a thought. Eventually, one day, I read the back cover and realised it that the author, Rob Hirst, was Midnight Oil's drummer and that this was a tour journal of their last tour of America. Well, why didn't you say so?!

Firstly, I love Midnight Oil. They're a great band. They've been around for 30 odd years so I'm sure they've got a few good stories up their sleeves. Unfortunately, hardly any of said good stories are to be found here - I guess you'd be better off reading the Midnight Oil biography Beds are Burning for that. This autobiographical book solely concerns their 2002 American tour and is as much travel literature as it is musical biography. As it says on the cover, it's also about America's post-9/11 angst. Allegedly.

I didn't really enjoy this book, I was kind of disappointed. It doesn't really know where it's going, it's neither here nor there... it's too freewheeling and all-encompassing for my tastes. I think I was hoping for something a bit more, I don't know, coherent? If this was simply a tour journal complete with diary entries then I'd probably be a bit more forgiving and open to random observations of America, but Hirst has had a good go at re-writing his notes into something a bit more high-brow - arranging various subjects into themed chapters. Sure, there are a few funny and interesting anecdotes and well-reproduced band conversations but it's all tied up and hidden amongst reams of eclectic observations and over-egged prose.

The book's back cover assures me that :the twist in this tale is when, after more than twenty-five years together, the band's charismatic lead vocalist, Peter Garrett, calls it a day:. Sounds dramatic doesn't it? Well, three entire pages at the book's end concern this, and for the rest of the book Garrett might as well not be even there, so focused is Hirst on recounting what food he ate where and why it's tough to sleep in a wide range of hotels. See? Even the book's publisher didn't know what to do with it - they had to talk up something that's tacked onto the end of the book in order to make it sound more interesting then it really is. And as for that blurb on the front cover... don't pick this book up expecting an interesting take on Americans dealing with 9/11, I don't know what the deal with that is or why Hirst even bothers to mention it every now and again, it all just amounts to worthless observation and very little substance.

Look, Rob Hirst isn't a bum. He can write... the book is probably a little too verbose for it's own good at times but no one could really say it's written poorly. I guess I just didn't get the point of this book. It should've been more focused - and I think the publishers would probably agree, Willie's Bar and Grill ended up in a lot of bargain book piles after it's release, I picked it up for less than 20% of it's original price.