'Shananananana Hiiiighway to JUUUNGLE!!"
We made it home safely from our first leg away, so I thought I’d share with you the experience to the best of my abilities. It seems that I have slipped into the role of narrating these trips away, which I’m more than happy to do. I feel my somewhat introverted tendencies help me in this regard, although I am still hopelessly dependent on one of my reliable spellcheckers (Ben, I am looking at you).
Day one was rough! I was up at 4:30am doing the rounds picking people up to go to the airport. I don’t think any of us slept well due to the excitement of doing another road trip. It’s funny, most of the time we’re together as a band we’re arguing about something, whether it be about a song or piece of artwork or just anything in general. Don’t get me wrong we love each other dearly, but there’s always lots to sort out. This all seems to melt away on the road. I’m not sure why. Maybe it's leaving our regular schedules behind, maybe all the hard decisions have already been made. Either way, we’re a tight crew on the road.
We arrived in Auckland at about 10, picked up the van, and went to meet Ilill. Joerg and Johannes had a big catch up as they hadn’t seen each other in years, and we got to meet Hiroshi and Keisuke which was sweet. After a few obligatory stops to Revel, Real Groovy, and Music planet we did sound check and got set up for the night. At one point I brought up the god awful news the Axl Rose had recently joined AC/DC. Aiden (our soundie for the night) confirmed that this was in fact true and we proceeded to rehearse our GNR — AC/DC mashup set.
“Welcome to the THUN-DER!!!” “OHHHH sweet child ABOUT TO ROCK” “Shananananana niiight loooong” “YOU GONNA DIEEE… wayyy to hell!”
(It seems that every band comes back from tour with a few stupid in-jokes that make no sense to anyone else, so I hope this helps)
The gig went well. We were really stoked with all the bands that played, most of which I hadn’t seen before. Ilill are awesome by the way. They have a really minimalist style and it’s interesting seeing what environment they create while playing. It’s intimate. We played our set and packed the van. Simon (from Parents) introduced us to Kitty who gave us a place to stay which we really appreciated. They even came to our next show in Hamilton!
The next day we hung out with Kitty at Revel before dropping off a few of our vinyl’s at Real Groovy and leaving for Hamilton. We met Cam and Chums and did a bit of a sound check. Melissa met us at the venue and we got to grab a coffee together. “Wow actually getting to see my girlfriend” I thought. “This is fantastic”. She was pretty tuckered out from work but managed to stay the whole night which was awesome.
It was great to see Wizz Kids again, they’re really good. Chums said they were thinking of doing a 7” soon, I hope they come to Dunedin when they release it. Threat.Meet.Protocol were awesome too. Their keys player had some great Big Muff, Whammy pedal freakout moments. We played our set and packed down. I went home with Melisaa and the others went to a party at Chums which apparently involved a lot of "seagulling". We left town around 12 for Levin.
None of us were really sure what to expect here. We had booked this last minute after our Wellington show fell through (long story short, the venue booked didn’t have their liquor licence). We arrived and met Roy the guy who runs the Alternative Entertainment Bureau. This place is incredible. It’s a DIY space that apparently runs up to three nights a week despite to being metres away from a council building and being completely BYO. There weren’t many people there that night but I think it might have been the best set out of the three nights as we were basically playing for each other. We should try do that every time from now on. We hung out with Roy (who is awesome) after the show. It turns out we will be seeing him again at Onslaught this year. We packed the van, did our obligatory crew photo and hit the road.
This brings us to the final 24 hours of our trip. We arrived in Wellington and after a quick stop a Midnight Espresso we headed to the ferry terminal. It was closed so we slept in the van for a few hours. Me and Johannes braved the elements in our sleeping bags under a bridge nearby. It was actually not bad. We are woken at 8am and proceed to check in the van. We sleep a bit of the first half of the crossing and go out on deck when we reach the Malborough Sounds. It is beautiful. I was especially looking forward to this part of the trip as I had not seen most of the upper South Island before. We landed, got lunch, and hit the road.
Google maps said it was a 10 hour drive. “Hahaaa”, we all laugh. "That’s 9 hours less than the biggest drive we’ve done. Do you have anymore driving?” Ben suggested we drive down to Invercargill to show our visitors the old stomping grounds. This drive was great. The scenery seemed to change every couple hundred kms to something new and equally stunning. We stopped on the east coast to look at some seals and quickly moved on. By this time we were on the home stretch. People were starting to get sore from being packed like sardines so we tried making really good time on the road. Ben got some Wild Bucks in Kaikoura and we got sloshed (in a classy way). Me and Joerg swapped driving in Ashburton and I did the final leg.
We arrived back in Dunedin at around 12:30. It was hard to believe that I had woken up in Wellington that day, and that we had driven most of the length of the South island. I dropped off the team before falling into a deep sleep.
Now it’s Monday. We’ve still got two shows left before parting ways with our buddies Ilill. We’re thinking of doing something special and one-off for the Friday show which is both exciting and kind of worrying. That’s all I can say.
Spread the word people!! Let's show Ilill the warm welcome they deserve and see if we can pack out the Crown for the second last date of the tour!!!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1742225479345108/
Yours truly Matt