Te Anau (October 31)

06:44pm 17 Nov 2009 0 comments

BY STEVE FROM THE BAND

We rolled out of Queenstown at noon and arrived @ Red Cliff mid arvo. Red Cliff is such a choice venue. Very small but once you get 60-80 people in there for the show the atmosphere is electric. It always amazes me how any band can fit in there to play a show.

The staff here are one of the main factors in this being such a wicked venue. Just a top bunch of cats that work well as a team which ensures the place runs like clockwork. These guys even closed the cafe one Saturday this year to all come down and watch us @ the Bluff Seafood Fest. Great to have Andy on board for the final show of the tour. He is familiar with Red Cliff as the Biffys played there in summer. So overall we were really stoked to be finishing the tour at one of our favourite venues.

After setup was the standard amazing Red Cliff munchy. PD Reid and I had the famous Wild Hare back straps  – simply superb. After dinner, over to the park for some touch footy. Then over to the Moose to watch the Stags go down valiantly to Wellington in the semifinal. A great season and Shield for the summer!

The show itself ended up being a bit of a blur. 11pm start and 2.30 am finish. Somewhere amongst all that we played 3 sets! Being Halloween it was always going to be a classic night. So many good cats at the show  – lots of family & friends and just good times had by all. We hit some crazy musical points and even busted out the odd hit cover.

A great way to end a really cool tour. Hopefully Nuggety has been distributed far and wide around the country now and found its way on to every iPod.

Queenstown (October 30)

06:15pm 17 Nov 2009 0 comments

BY STEVE FROM THE BAND

Dropped Mike @ the bus station in the arvo and headed into Qtown for set up @ Revolver. Good to catch up with Johno & Matt (venue owners) as always. Pretty long set up & soundcheck for a number of reasons. All good though as we'd given ourselves plenty of time. Also choice to have Matt Eddy onboard doing our sound again. He added some mean touches to the record –  wicked to give him a copy of it to check out for the first time.

The Drivers were also onboard for this show and played another phat set – another step up from Wanaka. Joel was far more comfortable using his own kit. They also brought a good crowd of classic cats that were demanding HEAVY!

We played a decent 90-minute set which pleased everyone apart from the cats who wanted the heavy stuff. They weren't able to digest our mix up of genres. Made for an entertaining show. Was also a classic gig experience for my 15 year old cuzzy who was allowed to come with my Uncle.

Back to Joel's after the show for a few post-gig beverages. We always seem to make up a new game when we go here and this time was no different. "Hooplar" was the fruit of our efforts. A wicked game in which a cat hurls the hoop so that it spins back and the other cat has to jump/dive/roll through it whilst it's moving. Awesome fun –  mega carpet burn though.

Wanaka (October 29)

05:58pm 17 Nov 2009 0 comments

BY STEVE FROM THE BAND

We played the Thursday night @ Red Rock. This was our 3rd time playing Red Rock. We were stoked to have `The Flaming Drivers' from Queenstown onboard for the show also. Awesome bunch of blokes and great band. Also excellent to have Mike E Holland onboard for one final show of the tour.

It was a pretty sweet show considering the time of year for Wanaka (the lull just after winter and before summer). Things were looking grim about 10pm but come 11 when all the other pubs shut things picked up considerably. The Drivers played an hour set. Joel (drummer) was a bit nuggeted out by Metz beast of a kit, though. This guys have great energy and really do kick ass.

We jumped up after midnight amongst a huge cloud of smoke (chur Logan) and played an extremely experimental/psychedelic set that seemed to go down well with the crowd (quite a few English tourists). I definitely think its time for some new material though... we couldn't possibly take these songs any further out of the box...

Pack up and load out was relatively painless and it was decided that the majority of us would drive back over to Queenstown to stay @ my Uncle's place. Logan & Callum stayed in the transit in the carpark. P.D Reid, Mike & I took the other van and Metz was driving his old lady's car. Classicly, Callum hadn't filled up the gas when we hit town earlier on so we were pretty much empty for the drive back to Qtown (no 24 pumps in Wanaka).

We made it to Cromwell and PD & I decided to park up @ Shell, have a kip and wait for the pumps to open @ 7. Metz & Mike drove on to Qtown

Wunderbar, Lyttelton (October 25)

09:01pm 08 Nov 2009 0 comments

BY MIKE HOLLAND (SOUND ENGINEER)

Sunday eventually caught up with us, (following some of the crew staying awake for the Kiwi's league match at 8am), and we were ecstatic to remember that we'd bought breakfast the night before.

Metz set about some culinary wizardry, and before long smiles were restored to faces, and we were ready to head out to sunny Lyttleton.

The Wunderbar website, which nearly conveys the buzziness of the actual place, directed us to toot at all oncoming traffic as we journeyed through the tunnel, and toot we did –  incessantly –with Stevo leaning out the window like an enthusiastic puppy-dog filming bemused Lyttletonians' reactions. At least we found it amusing...

Speaking of amusing, Wunderbar is an absolute trip. The gizzards of ancient computers, still somehow with lights flashing, surround enormous disco-balls on the ceiling. The toilets are impossible to find, until you realize that that iron stuck to the wall is actually door handle (but then there are masses of odd things stuck to the walls), the lamp shades are hair curlers, dolls' heads, and all manner of other weird stuff. Just go there!

The only drawback for me on this particular afternoon was that one of the venue's subs had decided to pass out on us (before we'd arrived, I should add). After an hour of would-be-heroic "repair" work, I gave up, and sat down for a beer while everyone else finished their set-up (Logan was having fun trying to find places to put lights, and power sources with enough juice to run them). Confidence in life restored, I set about running the one remaining sub on a grossly over-powered amp-channel – thankfully it lasted, and it provided just enough low-end, for all o' the day and night (during most of which I watched the amp's clip lights with bated breath).

Dux de Lux, Christchurch (October 24)

08:54pm 08 Nov 2009 0 comments

BY MIKE HOLLAND (SOUND ENGINEER)

The journey to Christchurch passed with just a single incident – my realization, upon taking over driving duties from Callum in Rangitata, that the van had but the smell of an oily rag in the tank. Never mind, we putted into Rolleston at 90km, everyone holding their breath and thinking light thoughts; at least we know how much a whole tank costs now: "E" means "enough", right?

Set-up at the Dux was, well, set-up at the Dux. These guys have a bunch of policies for visiting bands and crew – check is strictly 3-5pm (due to residential zoning), and a good deal of the PA is off-limits (locked in a cupboard) to visiting engineers  – an idea that does preserve the PA but that is also pretty frustrating at times. Thankfully, both tonight's bands  – Left or Right and Soulsystem – had good onstage sounds and didn't require me to push anything weird through FOH, and I was happy to sit back and play around with a bunch of effects, and drink some pricey, but tasty beer.

Also fun to note the Cantabrians' deadpan reactions to Stevo's on-stage Stags/Ranfurly Shield celebrations: cmon' Christchurch, give the guys a break, it's been 50 years, and you're just not that cool!

After the set finished at 11.30pm on the dot (residential-zoning-induced-time-limitations again), we packed out in reasonable time – well, some of us took it pretty slowly; I had a whisky to take care of first, and I overheard a certain LOR member having a discussion in which he was told, forthright "you see, that's the meaning of life, so, y'know ... "  If only we could remember what the first bit of that sentence was.

The drive back to Cooper's place (cheers for putting us up, mate) was basically shocker 101 lesson 1. Having already broken a window in the van due to some sort of mic-stand-meets-road-case-meets-glass scenario (I may or may not have contributed to this ... er ... nice tape job, Crispy!), we proceeded to slowly stumble upon the long arm o' the law. Whilst Hampo and I discussed the direction in which we were supposed to be going, (none of us had a clue), we reportedly sat at a green light for some time. Having finished said discussion, we moved through, as the light went orange.