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Xavier Rudd supported Jack Johnson at the Royal Theatre on 21 March 2005. They wheeled his "kit" to the front of the stage. As it turned out, it contained some drums (including a bass drum), some didgeridoos racked into position for easy playing and place to rest a Weissenborn-style guitar while he played slide. He also sang and played some harmonica.

I was impressed by the first song he played, which allowed him to display a wide range of skills. He seemed like a talented guy, managing to do several things at once, and do each of them competently. I was a little concerned that I couldn't understand any of the lyrics, mostly due to Rudd emoting rather than singing them, so I wasn't sure whether I was going to be applauding the fact that the sun is a beautiful thing or that he wished his guitar was a goat... although, given the context, I was reasonably sure it was going to be the former.

From that point, Rudd spent most of an hour doing a narrow range of variations on a couple of themes. Much of the set seemed like a reasonably uninteresting variation of a subset of a Ben Harper concert. He seemed quite inspired and a large part of the audience loved what he did. I didn't really understand - personally, I thought he was in imminent danger of either passing out or calling for a pizza.

Obviously Xavier Rudd's music isn't my thing. I thought his set was self-indulgent crap that went on for far too long... although clearly this view wasn't shared by all (or even most?) of the audience.