A smoke, a pill and the six o' clock swill - opening night

Opening night at the Promethean in Grote Street was a packed house, lots of laughs and a generous, warm audience - thank you!

The show started with a forlorn woman sitting at the bar (or piano, in this instance) ordering 'Something Cool' before delivering the male side of things with blokey and raucus renditions of Slim Dusty's  'Duncan' and 'Cigarettes and Whiskey'.  

In true Penguin style, A smoke, a pill and the six o' clock swill was a chronology of drug use and abuse starting with the Majestic Hotel in 1950s Adelaide and moving back through time to the cocaine imbibing aristocracy of Victorian England to contemporary themes of homelessness and wrecked lives.

The Penguins explored the drug-addled adventures of Arlo Guthrie (who secreted a reefer by eating it mid flight to avoid getting caught by customs) and paid homage to Easy Rider.  They also exposed the caring, sharing nature of cigarette and pharmaceutical companies.

Opening night of A smoke, a pill and the six o clock swill  was a journey woven through the ins and the outs; the ups and the downs and the masculine and feminine side of drug taking.

There are still some tickets left to some of the shows, so tell all your friends.

Here is our song list to whet your appetite:

• Something Cool (Billy Barnes, Sung by June Christie)

• Mother’s little helper (The Rolling Stones)

• I Drink (Mary Gauthier)

• Cocaine (JJ Cale)

• Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young)

• John Law Burned down the liquor store (Tommy Johnson)

• Simple Man (Steve Earle)

• Meeting Across the River (Bruce Springsteen)

• Alabama Song (sung by Jim Morrison and Marianne Faithful, written by Kurt Weill)

• Cigarettes and Whiskey (Vernon ‘Tim’ Spencer)

• Drunken Angel (Lucinda Williams)

• Sunday Morning Coming Down (Kris Kristofferson)

• Shaking Hands ( arr. Michelle Shocked)

• Don’t Bogart that Joint (Elliot Ingber/Larry Wagner, Sung by Fraternity of Man)

• White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane)

• Nips are getting bigger (Mental as anything)

• Love is the Drug (Bryan Ferry)

Virginia Slim

(on behalf of the Angry Penguins - Kent, Gasper, Buddah Sticks and Coolibah)