GoMA, South Bank - Fri Jan 30

Half of Brisbane, it seems, is crammed into the GoMA River Room to hear two members of The Chaser (Julian Morrow and Andrew Hansen) give a short performance on the exhibition theme of 'optimism'. It's a pithy topic, but for all the wrong reasons – quite clearly the punters are optimistic to expect more than half an hour of lazy, poor-taste zingers about Dennis Ferguson and Queensland's ailing health system for their $20. (Also: Julian, if you're reading this, please keep your voice down. You have a microphone; you don't need to yell to be heard over Andrew).

The crowd has thinned out substantially by the time Machine Translations (or, to be more accurate, J Walker and his backing band) come on stage. It's a shame so few are here, because the driving, bluesy set opener Hateful + Stray is captivating. Since the set is limited, Walker keeps the material to his better-known material, much of it from 2007's Seven Seven: Love Won't Wait and Need A Miracle both get a showing before Walker winds the set down with the gorgeous layered piece The Long Goodbye. Always one to end things on a good note, he ends the set with You'll Change, which he dedicates to parents of children still in nappies – which, come to think of it, means his set was at least as funny as the Chaser's ...

CHAD PARKHILL 

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