The Residents were asked to perform at the 2005 What Is Music? Festival in Australia. Despite speculation that they would be performing selections from their upcoming Animal Lover album, the band celebrated their first return down under since the 13th Anniversary Show with The Way We Were, also known as the 33rd Anniversary Show.

The show consisted of selections from across their career, not unlike the 13th Anniversary Show, that were grouped by decade. In fact, one release even listed the tracks as suites instead of individual songs.

"Memories, like the corners of my mind..."
--as Barbra Streisand sang so sweetly back in 1973.


While Barbra's memories were rummaging around the fallow corners of her mind in the early seventies, The Residents had their own business to take care of. After their first release Santa Dog was set adrift late in 1972, the group anxiously awaited the vast acclaim certain to shower down on the brilliant creators of that double set of 45 RPM records. Patiently, they sat by the phone... and waited... and waited... and waited some more. Not only did the phone not ring, but several the Santa Dog records were actually returned unopened, including one personally addressed to their favorite politician, then-president Richard Nixon. Disappointed, but not discouraged, the group immediately launched into another recording project, one destined to become their first album, Meet The Residents.

Recording music quickly became an addiction, and for a while every year produced another title. But, after ten years of life in the studio, The Residents began to feel the need of a new challenge, a new mode of creativity to explore. So, not unlike flies unconsciously drawn to the odor of fresh feces, the group soon found itself sucked into the world of live performance.

A few years later, during their second tour, and the thirteenth year of their career, the group was unexpectedly invited to Australia and New Zealand for a month of shows stretching from Perth to Christchurch. This 13th anniversary show was a sensation and eventually charmed the entire world with it curiously odd mixture of performance art and music. Performing mostly in the dark and accompanied by a herd of inflatable white giraffes, what was there not to love?

But, despite glowing reviews and sold out shows, The Residents were never invited back to Australia. They were, of course, asked to play other exotic places, from Russia to Portugal, from Oslo to Tel Aviv... but they were never invited back to Australia. Not for 20 years. A lot can happen in 20 years. Children become adults, records turn into MP3s, and Osama Bin Laden becomes the new improved Hitler.

Finally, late in 2004, when The Residents were asked to perform in Australia again, they said "no." By this time they no longer relished a reprise down under. It was too far away and they had other things to do. Creating a performance for a single festival taking place in three cities was too much work for too little reward. But one of the things that had happened during that 20 year gap was that The Residents had unexpectedly become the godfathers of the avant-garde rock world, and the performers for this Aussie festival, an event devoted to new and unusual music, were musicians who had grown up listening to The Residents... children who had become adults.

With this in mind, The Residents began to feel they had an obligation to go back to Australia, this time touting their 33rd Anniversary while swearing that they would certainly return again... for the 53rd Anniversary Show. So the group decided it would be the most fun to play some of the same material they had played in Australia 20 years earlier, as well as newer material, some of which was, well, maybe only 19 years old. But, joking aside, The Residents did agree to go to Australia and perform, as much for the other performers as for the audience.

Only five performances were scheduled. For normal tours, it takes at least five shows just to work out the bugs, so The Residents accepted the offer knowing that this tour would be buggy as a swamp in the summer. And it was. And even though it was taken from an audience mix, they somehow managed to get the performance recorded... and somehow managed to get those recordings assembled into a full-length CD of the show. You can absolutely rest assured that the disk you are now holding in your hands has every song that was played, with edits occurring only when the performance was purely visual. It's true, we swear.

Finally, many people have asked if the 33rd Anniversary Show in Australia was a warm up for another world tour, like the 13th Anniversary Show. When this question was put to The Residents, they paused, looked at each other knowingly, and walked away. One of them seemed to be singing something that sounded a little like "Memories, like the crud in my duck blind..." But I could be mistaken.

Way We Were (2005)

Disk 1: Audio

1. The Way We Were (intro)
2. Lizard Lady
3. Hello Skinny
4. Picnic In The Jungle
5. Commercial Album Suite
6. Coming Of The Crow/Eva's Warning
7. Would We Be Alive?
8. Perfect Goat/Golden Goat
9. The Sleeper
10. Their Early Years
11. Jelly Jack
12. Deadwood
13. They Are The Meat/Mr. Misery
14. Burn Baby Burn
15. Mr. Wonderful
16. Betty's Body
17. Ober
18. Teddy Bear
19. Ship Of Fools
20. The Way We Were Goodnight (outro)

Disk 2: Video

• Picnic In The Jungle
• The Sleeper
• Eva's Warning
• Jelly Jack/Deadwood
• Ship Of Fools
• LOTS OF KNOTS (footage from the projections for "The Way We Were")

Triple Dub-Ya: The Way Were - Melbourne (2012)

1. Rocking in the '70's
2. Rocking in the '80's
3. Rocking in the '90's
4. Rocking in the '00's
5. Rocking in the Encore