Concrete Playground

It's always a gamble when a legend returns to the stage¦ Have they still got 'it'? Can they walk across the stage ok on their new knees? What if they just want to bore us with some new obscure "experimental" album?

I don't think you have anything to worry about with ol' Faithfull. She's survived half a century of the music industry, a relationship with Mick Jagger, and a 150-pill overdose in a Sydney hotel back in the '60s; and thus the years have simply added to her steadfast presence, the nicotine has deepened her legendary wail, the lines on her face tell as many stories as her music.

To prove it she's playing her debut solo performance at Sydney Opera House as part of Adventures 2010 alongside an all-star bill of artists [both dead and alive] including nutty American film director John Waters, nouvelle British band Antony and The Johnsons and the inexhaustible Andy Warhol.

Performing with an eight-piece band, Faithfull will deliver goodies like Broken English and Sister Morphine, as well as tracks from her new album Easy Come, Easy Go. Ok, so maybe she is plugging a new album, but how can you go wrong with tracks written by Nick Cave, Morrissey, Dolly Parton, and Duke Ellington?