19 years after his last visit to Sydney, Jerry Seinfeld took to the stage at the new ICC Theatre and entertained an audience of 8,000 people for 90 minutes. I laughed the whole time. He doesn’t miss a beat, performing with fresh material, pace, timing and no swearing. His voice is exactly the same as the one that has echoed complaints out of our tv’s since 1989 and those classic mannerisms haven’t changed.

Something that has changed? The International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC), which was recently rebuilt as part of the Revitalize Darling Harbour Precinct initiative. The completed initiative will cost $3.4 billion but it is expected that over the next twenty-five years the ICC alone will bring in $5 billion.

The theatre itself houses 8,000 state of the art seats, with unobstructed views of the stage. Using a innovative fan shaped layout, 100% of the seats are forward facing, solving the age old problem of booking last minute tickets, that situate you somewhere between stage left and the curtains. The downside of the new seating strategy is that the distance between you and the main stage widens quickly. The ICC solves that with two 180m² HD screens, showcasing a close up of the act, in Seinfeld’s case, allowing us to see his subtle mannerisms that would only really be on view to the people in row A. 

Seinfeld’s act is refined. He looks at our lives, his included, and deduces that we are all racing to get somewhere but when we do, we then have the urge to go somewhere else. We are dissatisfied, except of course, in bed (not for the reasons you think) it’s because it’s simply the most comfortable position. You see in the evolution of our species that it’s taken forever to develop the ability to stand upright but still we desire sitting, in fact we are built for it with our well cushioned behinds. Though truly lying prostrate is nirvana.

Laughing at Seinfeld’s life observations is therapeutic. He’s happy to eat out at a restaurant where the food is “not bad” but he knows we all succumb to finding the next best restaurant in the world so we can tell everyone else. “You must go”, even though it’s ridiculously overpriced and unlikely to be enjoyable.

For any parent that has allowed their child to sleep in their bed, he likens that experience to lying next to a bag with a goat in it.

It was great to see the New York living legend, Jerry Seinfeld in an amazing new space at Sydney’s Darling Harbour. Unfortunately, true to his observations of life, he loves Sydney but after three days can’t wait to get out of here.

 

For more about the ICC and The Darling Harbour Precinct Initiative, click here