First of all was a gig at the Athanaeum Theatre on the 5th. The venue is such a gorgeous theatre and it is lovely and intimate that anything viewed there feels special. This gig started with a 45 minute set by Clare Bowditch followed by 1½ hour set by The Waifs and then a 1¼ hour set by John Butler – during each act’s set, the others would join in a bit and even Vika and Linda came on for one of John’s songs. My main attraction to the gig was to see The Waifs as they never fail to provide enjoyment and this was no exception – they were fantastic.

Next was seeing Archie Roach at the Corner Hotel on the 6th. I think of Archie as one of the best story tellers there is. He expresses himself and his thoughts with incredible clarity and passion – he is just a very moving performer and I love going to see him. The support was provided by Sally Dastey and Amy Saunders – that is 2/3 of Tiddas who were huge favourites of mine. They were gorgeous and I was already a happy chappy. The next act was a young chap from Tasmania called Dewayne who had a stunning voice and sang some beautiful stuff. And then came Archie and his clan – he played a great set and the audience were so quiet as he wove his stories through our attention. A top night was had.

The third gig to mention was the wonderful Eddi Reader on the 29th who was back here for the first time in 18 months – it was great to see her again. She is another performer who never fails to deliver the goods – it is an incredible collection of songs that she has at her disposal and it is impossible for her to play all my favourites as there are too many. Happy days.

But the most significant event of this month was that there was finally a Sorry Day. I won’t write too much about all the history and meaning around this as that will all be part of my Aboriginal write-up that I am still working on. To summarise though, there have been Aboriginal people living in Australia for at least 40,000 years and white people have been here for 220 years. When white people arrived, they treated this land as though it was unpopulated and took over and took everything they wanted and attacked and oppressed the indigenous population and showed them no respect and no acknowledgment of them living here and having any rights. On top of that, they took a lot of the children away from their families to try and educate them to be white – basically they defiled and broke up families and didn’t tell the parents where the kids were and didn’t tell the kids who their parents were until they were 18 and then they didn’t always have records to help the kids know who their real families were.

With all that history, the indigenous population have wanted the Australian government to say sorry for their actions. There had been apologies and acknowledgement of the wrongs before, but never an official ‘sorry’. On the 13th of February, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said sorry in a great speech – an unqualified apology. I took the day off work as I wanted to experience such a momentous event. In the city, Federation Square was showing the speech on the big screen and the square was packed with thousands of people. I chose to view it at the Aboriginal Advancement League building in Thornbury and it was an emotional place to hear the words and to see their effects on people.

Later in the day, I went to Federation Square where there were 2½ hours of live music from indigenous acts and when Archie Roach sang ‘they Took The Children Away’, there was a standing ovation that just went on and on. He’s sang that song and told that story for all these years and this was the day when the government finally acknowledged it – what a moment.

The reason that the word ‘sorry’ is so important as part of the apology is because the word holds special meaning in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. In many Aboriginal communities, sorry is an adapted English word used to describe the rituals surrounding death (Sorry Business). Sorry, in these contexts, is also often used to express empathy or sympathy rather than responsibility. During the 2007 election campaign, the then Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, also recognised the significance of the word sorry:“… simply saying that you’re sorry is such a powerful symbol. Powerful not because it represents some expiation of guilt. Powerful not because it represents any form of legal requirement. But powerful simply because it restores respect”

The world feels better to me now that we have said sorry - but we still have a long way to go and both sides have a lot to do - but we're getting there - it is changing.