Over the course of his career as a recording artist, Colin Hay has managed to rack up quite a few stories. His two-hour solo show Thursday night at the Turner Hall Ballroom was split evenly between songs and anecdotes relating to his career and his life in general.

Hay is best known for his Grammy-winning band Men at Work, who achieved commercial success with songs like "Down Under" and "Who Can It Be Now." Using humor right off the bat, Hay made it clear that Men at Work fans would hear some of their favorites. "I'll lightly pepper the show with hits. I'll use the hits as a condiment." Hay then smiled and laughed that he only had a few hits to begin with.

Before playing "Who Can it Be Now," Hay pointed out that the signature saxophone riff that kicks off the song sounds much different on an acoustic guitar. Hay admitted the powerful opening was lost and that on the new instrument, it sounded more like incidental music from Masterpiece Theatre.

While a very enthusiastic and interesting storyteller, Hay's anecdotes mostly seemed like they were the first draft of a story. Whether talking about his father coming to the rescue against some schoolyard bullies or how a fellow musician misheard a lyric, Hay's stories were funny but at times too long.

He talked at great length about meeting and spending time with Paul McCartney, but despite the potential and the audience's anticipation of hearing the story, most of the details were inconsequential. The fact that McCartney cleaned the dishes at Hay's house after dinner was the most amusing detail of the time Hay spent talking about the legendary Beatle.

While switching to a different guitar onstage, Hay took a brief break to tune the instrument. This pause led to an audience member pleading to have him play her favorite song "Here in My Hometown." Unsure if he could remember all of it, Hay talked about how the song came from the loss of a dear friend.

He did an excellent job performing the unsolicited request but tonally, the somber song didn't fit in with the rest of his set list. After his emotional introduction to this song, Hay took a break from talking for three songs, something he hadn't done all night.

Toward the end of his set, Hay discussed how important a part Zach Braff had in his career resurgence. Braff was a fan of Hay's music and brought his CDs onto the set of the television series "Scrubs" in hopes that the producers would hear something that could be incorporated into the show. The creator of the series loved the Hay song "Overkill" and brought in Hay to perform it on the show in one of the series most popular episodes.

Hay's performance of "Overkill" was a highlight of the night. Hay had used mild reverb and looping effects throughout the set, but during this song his equipment inexplicably backfired on him and kept repeating a short acoustic riff. Lifting his hands off his guitar to show that he was not still playing, Hay took a break from the song to laugh at the absurdity of the moment. "That's what you get for using technology. At least I'm not on f*cking Saturday Night Live," said Hay, alluding to Ashlee Simpson's vocal track catastrophe on the show in 2004. Even with his equipment going rogue on him, Hay still delivered with the knockout song.

Rather than pretending he was leaving only to be brought back on for an encore, Hay made fun of what is now an arbitrary process.

After declaring that his show was over, Hay stood on stage and said "So I've gone off, come back, thank you very much." He closed out the night with Men at Work's biggest hit, "Down Under," but not without telling his most captivating story about how the band was sued for copyright infringement. While revealing that the band lost the case, Hay explained that the two bars taken from a song called "Kookaburra" was because a fellow band member thought he'd come up with the sequence himself. Interestingly, this was the most concise and rehearsed story Hay told.

Opener Grace Weber has a beautiful voice and showcased songs from her album "Hope & Heart." As a live performer, she still has room to grow. She only really acknowledged the Turner Hall audience once and that was to let them know that merchandise would be available in the back of the ballroom. Her music is fantastic, but as indicated, she wasn't very engaging. Maybe Hay could loan her an anecdote or two.