It was at a studio, so naturally everyone there was trying to make themselves look posh, well behaved and important, very nice suits and the rest of it.  I turned up in my “I call NZ home” teeshirt and ratty old jeans, because A) I’d forgotten that most people dress up and B) I was all about showing mah support, alright?

We brought drinks, shuffled our way along the queue to find quite good seats and spent the next 20 min or so just people watching.  Marcelo nudged me.  “Can you tell that people are Kiwi just by looking at them?”  I thought about it.  The truth is, yea, sometimes, I can.  I dunno how, I mean, we don’t look different or anything.  But as we were sitting there, I had a distinct impression that majority of the crowd were New Zealanders.  Not because it was a New Zealand comedian, not because there was a group of seats reserved at the front for “The New Zealand Tourist Board” but something else.  Something… familiar.

The warm up act was quite good, a man called Wilson who was a redneck country music singer type character.  He played a few songs, got the crowd going.  On his last note, he said bye to the crowd and introduced Rhys Darby’s act.

It was at this point I realised what the familiarity was.  Half the crowd poured, I mean, POURED down the aisles and rushed out the door.  The bar was PACKED.  In that quick 10 minute interval, everyone had frantically run out to buy more drinks.  The line to the guys bathrooms were longer than the girls, on the account that, in true Kiwi form, everyone had probably drunk 4 pints of beer during the 20 minute warm up act.  We haven’t really got the whole sip-and-enjoy-your-drink type culture yet.

As we waited for Rhys to appear, I fiddled with my camera trying to turn off the flash.  I changed some settings, took a practice shot, was happy with the results and turned my camera off.

Rhys came on stage, I turned on my camera, which had helpfully reset itself when I’d turned it off, and promptly photo-flashed the poor guy the minute he walked out.  MY BADS.  After I started with the photos, other people started too soo… I wasn’t the only one.

I can say, without a doubt, Rhys Darby’s show was the best stand up I’ve ever seen.  Ever.  I was actually rolling laughing.  I was laughing well after a joke had finished.  He is this sound box of talent and pure entertainment.  I was still giggling to myself on the way home.  Well recommended, if you get the chance, go see it.

It was a lot warmer this time round. Didn’t take any chances though, jeans and hoody for me heh. I really thought this night was going to be quieter than the night before, but I think there were actually more people there. Armed with Smirnoff in crappy plastic cups, we walked in as a band on stage were playing. “These guys are good” I thought. “Oh shit, is that Poison?” I promptly lost everyone and ran towards the pit. Bumped into some friends I have seen for YEARS which was totally awesome. There was a fight in the pit again, but this time, the guys were a little better prepared.

Poison were great, they looked like they were having so much fun up on stage. I love bands that look like that. “Fuck it, we’re not finished yet” they yelled. “Here’s one more song for ya”. I actually managed to get a ok photo of the stage, considering we were really far back, was drunk, and my camera’s crap at night.

Whitesnake was next. They were alright I guess, plenty to sing along too, but I did think Poison were better. Had great fun with the Pinehaven boys however, there was a good crowd there. I met a guy with horns implanted in his head. After tipping wine all over my cellphone on accident, I got a hold of Rob, who had driven down from Auckland that I met at Kiss. “Lets sit in the Platinum seats” he said. “But, but, we only have Gold tickets…” “We’ll just walk in”. So we did. Holy crap, Ozzy was LOUD. It was so loud I actually felt a bit ill. Although, that might have had something to do with the alcohol. Dunno. It started with a series of skits over the big screen, putting him as the star in different TV programs like The Office which was pretty funny. He opened with I Don’t Want to Stop which quickly revved the crowd up.

He was amazing to watch on stage. This is a guy who truly, truly lives to be in concert. “Fuck yea, how would you like to hear some fucking Black Sabbath? This fucking song is fucking called WAR PIGS”. I got a bit teary at this point. Then he sung Crazy Train. That’s when I really started crying heh. I’ve only had a few moments in my life, where I’ve known that there was no other place I’d rather be than here. I was just so touched, so happy. Mama, I’m Coming Home and then PARANOID fucking went off.

As we were walking out, Rob asked what I did for a living. Ahh the favourite question that makes people look at me sideways. “Um..I work for a few websites. I, um, am a bit of a geek. “.
“I thought you were”, he said.
“What?! What made you think that?”
“I dunno, I think when you started calling everything ‘epic’ “.

Crap. Clearly I need to address the blurring of the lines between online and offline speech.

Jumped on the train, back home, bumping into more of the Pinehaven crew. I am so exhausted now. What a massive weekend.

More Photos

The singlets with KISS ARMY spray painted on the back of them were a great idea in the beginning. We had people beeping at us on the way to the train station, we had a lot of people wanting to take photos with us. When we got to the stadium, the singlets weren’t such a good choice. This was an outside stadium concert in Wellington. We were freaking FREEZING. The pit was slightly warmer though where everyone huddled to wait for Lordi to open. As we were waiting, they had guitarists around the stadium, screaming out solos.

I only knew one song by Lordi, but they were fantastic. Lots of effects and fire shooting and a great band to watch. They were followed by Sonic Altar, a band I’d never heard of and couldn’t even HEAR. They turned the sound down or something? What the hell? There were zombie cheerleaders around this point though.

Alice Cooper was next up. This is when ye olde height of 5 foot 3in is such a pain in the arse. This is what everyone else could see (except less blurry):

This is what I could see:

From what I could see on the screens, Alice Cooper puts on an amazing show. He beat up some chick, then got hung from a scaffold. There was a 3 person drum solo. Really trippy, it was cool to watch. He sung all the classics, however halfway through Poison I was distracted by a mass fight of like 8 people, that had broke out in the pit. Also, I got my bum pinched by some dude. I was covered in Kiss face paint that had cracked and smeared, and I looked more like a cross between the Joker and Bride of Frankenstein. Honestly, does that turn you on? DOES IT? DOES IT REALLY?

There was a bit of break between Alice and Kiss so we went out to get some drinks. On the way back down, I realised I could see a lot more from the seats in the Stadium, rather than being down in the pit. I really wanted to sit down and watch Kiss. Does this make me old? That I’d rather sit down? I dunno. My ticket wasn’t for seating, but it was pretty easy to bypass security guards.

I’m glad I did anyways. Kiss were AWESOME. Lots and lots of fireworks and glitter and glam and flying fox across the crowd. Lots of great sing-a-longs. I had a lot of fun :) Unlike the Chili Peppers, these guys were so great up on stage, their solos and things were actually cool to listen to. It was a very long night, but I enjoyed every minute.

More photos here

I’ve always found TV sets to be the most interesting places to watch people. A normal pleb, like me, will stand up very straight and try to look dignified but very happy to be there. Then there are those who are “Suspected-TV-Celebrities-That-Look-Familiar- But-I-Can’t-Remember-Who-You-Are-Right-Now” who look bored and far too cool to enjoy themselves. Then, there are the actual celebrities, who are smiling and are generally pretty cool.

I’ve been part of an audience before, I’ve been a background person in a short series, I’ve been in a advert. I still don’t know what I think of people who work in the TV industry. I’m tempted to say that the people there sort of make you feel very small and insigificant, but I’m not sure if that’s all in my head or not.

Unless you work at AltTV of course. Not only is AltTV full of the coolest people EVAH, they all offer you drinks. The brief few times I’ve hung out at Alt, I’ve been blown away at how friendly everyone is.

In other news….
One of you cheeky bastards from #digital-overload quoted me on QDB :P I’m not pointing the finger at Spectre anyone in particular…

Our first bad decision (thanks Disco) was when we decided we’d get a taxi van to the Hotel, rather than the city bus. “It’ll save us $4!” It also took 2 HOURS LONGER. In fact we got there the same time as Sal and Cam who’d taken a later flight up. We stayed at the Oaks Apartments right in the centre of town, it was really nice. 3 people in each apartment and boy, did we have a lot of alcohol.

We didn’t get to have much of a concert pre-drinks as by the time we got there, we only had a few hours before we actually had to head off to our concerts. Nat, Zara, Georgie, Sal, Cam, Marcus and Steve went to Justin Timberlake. The cool kids (Disco, Baz, Szeto and I) went to Muse.

Before the concert:

Muse did not disappoint. They are not labeled “the best live act in the world” for no reason. However, it was one of those concerts where I truly hate being 5″3. There are a helleva lot of tall people in this world, and I seem to have stood behind most of them in the mosh pit. Yes there was a mosh pit at Muse. For about one song there was almost a circle pit as well. I didn’t even see one of those at Bad Religion. Completely random. I was packed in so tight next to people, when I raised my arms for a good song, I couldn’t get them down again.

I am completely in love with Matthew Bellamy. I have been for a long long time. Standing, squashed in with all those people, I couldn’t help but judge what my chances would be of running the hell over all everyone, by passing the security guards and getting myself up on stage to give the man a hug. “He’s just THERE” I was thinking. I think weird things in concerts. I also thought about the implications of taking my pants off. Not for anything dodge. It’s just jeans were a BAD CHOICE. I was hot.

Muse sang everything, every single awesome song I crank in my car and at home, with the exception of Muscle Museum. Encore was Plug In Baby and Knights of Cydonia which are my absolute favorites. They didn’t talk much during the concert, but instead filled the gaps between songs with instrumentals. I preferred this. I can never understand what the hell anyone is saying on stage anyways. I swear those microphones have a “singing ONLY” function.

After the concert, Disco and I could actually wring our teeshirts out. Truly the mark of a awesome concert :) We headed down the road, deaf and soaking wet, to try locate a taxi. Baz was really good at this. He may have caused a 2 car, nose-to-tail collision whilst locating said taxi, but the main thing is, we got home safe.

After the concert:

Saturday day I hung out with Dave and Saturday night was Charades night. The highlight of this was Disco acting the word “Passionfruit”. Of course he was trying to rhyme “fruit” with “root”. I’ve never seen anyone dryhump a couch with such enthusiasm. We hit town, promptly lost EVERYONE and wandered round the streets of Auckland until around 4am in the morning. It was a good night! The 10am check out the next day was not so cool. Then the wait for our 4pm flight sucked even more. We sat on the footpath in Queens street waiting for a Christmas Parade. We sat there for hours. I got a balloon. Before the parade started, we had to go to the airport. That was a real unfortunate waste of time.

All up, it was a really wicked weekend. Great company, fantastic concert.

Moar photos:

More Photos

Aaron and I caught a freaking 8am plane up (it was the only $39 flight I could get) and caught the bus to where some of the boys were staying. It was a little 3 bedroom apartment, cute, would have been nice. Except there were 10 of us staying there. 9 boys and me. Ha, I’m always the only girl. The crew were already hungover by the time we got there and we spent the rest of the day wandering round central Auckland, looking for skate shops. I always thought Wellington was the hilly city.. but damn we’ve got nothing on central Auckland. Some of those hills are killer. We found a cafe that was next to our apartment building. I can’t remember the name of it. Its on Symonds street, near Whitaker road, across the road from a statue of a half naked chick. Do not go there. EVER. JUST DON’T.

We half arssedly hit the alcohol, no one wanted to get too drunk. Everyone’s had a concert experience where they’ve been too drunk to remember it, and Bad Religion is a concert that you’d want to remember forever. There was a few arguments about when we should go. No one wanted to see the supporting bands. No one wanted to miss the start of BR. It was around about this time, my friend Scotty showed us the “blister” on his foot.
“Faark dude, that is not good. It looks hella infected”
“It really hurts – my whole leg hurts”
“I suggest you go to a doctors. Do it. Remember that time you left your ear infection for so long, your ear drum inverted?”
“Nah, I’ll be fine”.
Damn males and their machoness.

Disregarding Scotty’s frequent grumblings of pain, we went to the pub. Dust started to look a bit uncomfortable. “Do you think I stick out?”
“What?”
“I’m the only one wearing any colour”
And he was. There were hundreds and hundreds of people. Dust was the ONLY one wearing a blue jacket and orange teeshirt. Everyone else was punk black and bogan to the core.
“Errr, well that guy’s wearing red” I mumbled.
“He’s wearing a Strung Out teeshirt. Wearing other punk teeshirts don’t count. I have a picture of a bull on my shirt”
“Well a bull’s ok I guess”
“It also says ‘Ride the Bull’. Does that look gay?
“Well, maybe, in this context…no..I dunno, hey lets go in!”

It was packed. No passouts, no bag checks. Expensive alcohol. It was only when we got inside we saw the sign. “Due to a flight delay, Bad Religion will not be on until 11.30pm”. It was 8 o’clock. That 3 and a half hours SUCKED.
“This place is a sausage fest!” Fuzz exclaimed.
“This place would be a good place to score” I thought to myself. Some drunken punk tripped up a two stair and kicked me in the shin. “I wonder how many of these guys actually have jobs” was my second thought.

By the time the first supporting band came on we were just stoked to hear music. They were crap, but it didn’t matter. The second band were alright. Then Bad Religion just rocked so hard. I had a primo spot, right by the sound guys, a head above everyone else. I did not go in the pit. I am not suicidal. The band looked like they were just having so much fun, laughing with each other. I got the setlist off the sound guys which I was stoked about, I never get any cool shit at concerts.

After that, we headed back to the apartment and drank. We had Epic Sleeping Bag Argument. I snaked EK’s bed. He slept on the floor of the kitchen. Heh.

Poor Scotty ended up in hospital for 3 days. His blister wasn’t a blister at all, I was right, it was a mad infection. I think he’ll be home tomorrow.

MOAR photos.

There’s pros and cons to hanging out with your dad on a Friday night. The best bit was when I was talking with some guy (in a suit… I know, wtf was I thinking) and Dad came over. “Hey Lil* come dance with me” he said smiling. The he hastily whispered “I know that guy, he’s a bit dodgy, bad move, go talk to someone else”.

Thanks Dad. A million years ago that would of embarrassed the crap out of me, but these days all I can do is find it funny.

(*Lil is not the name my dad calls me.)

The night continued to get more and more random. I met a guy that I know off Myspace. After that I think I ditched everyone and barged into Scotlands flat, in which I proceeded to talk my face off to an amused and very sober Scotland. I think I went to sleep still talking. Boy did that morning suck. Next weekend I’m starting my sober binge. Its well overdue.

Saturday night was fun. We went to comedy at San Fran to see Dai Henwood. “Who do you reckon the start up comedian will be?” I asked Disco. “Hmm, not sure I didn’t see anyone on the flyer, I wonder if he’ll have one”.

As it happens, the start up comedian for Dai Henwood, was… Dai Henwood. Except wearing spandex and in character of an American pro wrestler. Very very funny, in fact the whole show was, and I am so glad he danced for us.

However. There was this chick there… and my gowd did she make an ass of herself. If you are reading this, random-chick-at-Dai-Henwood-show I hope you know you made a total ass of yourself. I feel sorry for you for two reasons. One, you made an ass of yourself in front of the entire club. Two, your friends did not stop you making an ass of yourself.

If I had been trashed/stupid enough to try any of that shit, my petite mate Georgie would of punched me in the head, no questions asked. Something I do appreciate, I have good friends.

This is Mischief. Lately since its been fucking cold she’s decided that she feels its no longer good enough to be kicked down to the bottom corner of the bed and has taken to sleeping directly on top of my chest. During the middle of the night I’ll be woken up to a cat staring directly at me while doing that claw flexy thing cats do into my cheek. Much much more effective than a alarm clock.

Blindspott concert was so so awesome, much thanks to Empire who gave me the free ticket! And was kind enough not to mention that I resembled the guy from The Cure once the lights came on and I had found my way out of the pit. It was good to have a good stomp, feels like I haven’t done so in ages. There were a few fights, nothing serious. However there was the presence of The Skinny Guy in the mosh pit. You know The Skinny Guy. Hes usually tiny with a mohawk and for some reason he gets to crowd surf during every damn song. The security guys hate him. I’m pretty sure the people he jumps on top of to get up there hate him. I’m even sure the band was getting pretty sick of seeing the same guy crowd surfing everytime.

For some reason this really annoys me. FFS let someone else have a go alright? We’re here to enjoy a concert not haul your skinny ass around. In all fairness, when you’re my height people just tend to go straight over your head anyways.. BUT STILL.

I’ve been reading a few peoples blogs lately, and have decided I’m going to get a lot more into this. I wouldn’t mind my own site, but yea, lazy factor I guess. It would be kind of cool though.  Not to mention extremely geeky. Mmmk enough rambling from me.

Fallout Boy – 1st Oct
Justin Timberlake – 23/24 Oct
Bad Religion – 14 Nov

Argh at least my Airpoints are happy with me.  Ooh and Blindspott tomorrow aww bless them for having a WELLINGTON concert.  Yes, I’m going to Justin. Apparently hes bringing sexy back.  My first pop concert.  How exciting. No really it is. Well its gonna be a massive girls trip anyways, everyone round the office is very excited, there’s been frantic emails about the game plan of how we will acquire tickets, will we be able to get leave, why does it have to be on a Tuesday? My friend Fairlight just pointed out there’s a possibility I might not get groped in the pit at this one. No, but I might get eye gouged and trampled by crazy screaming 15 year old girls.

I have absolutely no sick or annual leave yet thanks to 2 weeks in New York, hmm probs should write something or post pics about that… hopefully I can edit this when I get home… Myspace hasn’t let me edit things lately..

It started off being awesome when we got on the plane and realised we had been upgraded to business class. Got picked up by Steve (poor guy had to drive us everywhere), went to the Auckland office, where they have table tennis and a massage chair you bastards. I’m so buying one of those… Then got dropped of at a mall to entertain ourselves. To kill time before Jeremy and the boys finished work we ended up at good ole Napolean paying a damn fortune in make up to get ours done. Then to Jeremys where the drinking began!

I got far too drunk too quickly. An example of this was when I walked out of the bathroom and asked Georgie if she’d seen my cellphone. “No”, she said and walked into the bathroom, “oh wait, HAHA found it”.

Apprently when cellphone meets toilet = Toilet Wins. So if anybody is tryna get a hold of me for the moment, either txt Bligh or email.

Decided we’d head into town, and bumped into this camera crew for TV3 News. Jeremy immediatly decided that they were going to interview a very drunken me and Georgie. “I have the perfect shot” he told the camera guy while he lined us up in front of a billboard of a naked chick behind us. “There ya, lovely, I should get into TV”. “So what do you think of party pills being banned?” I cannot remember exactly what was said, except that I rambled something about how no one knows how dangerous they are in the long term since they haven’t been round long enough. I remember thinking, fuck the both of us held that together well, I may not have even been slurring. “They were great answers!” the guy told us, while the camera guy said “shit. I shot that in the wrong mode, we need to do it again”.

Arse. I know for a fact round 2 did not turn out as well. So we tried our best to repeat it, and he asked us if the ban would affect our night tonight. “NO CUZ WE LIKE ALCOHOL WOOOOOHOOOO!!”

“I bet they will make us look like dicks” Georgie told me. Yup I bet they did too.

Onwards to Verona bar for more alcohol consumption and we met the crew from Alt. Ended up in their studio, jumping all over Daves couch for photos, and generally running amouk. Its this part of the night that is really hazy… however I remember getting off the couch and seeing these other people sitting down just casually talking to the camera. We discussed this the next morning. “fuck do you think they were actually hosting a show?” “I have no idea, do you think they got us on camera?” “Probably yes, crap”.

Then to Vector! No idea how we got there. All I remember at this point was being handed a cup of vodka something. We walked in just after Sebastion Bask had finished and I bumped into some others from Boganville Upper Hutt. No surprises there. Guns and Roses Axl Rose and friends were a fantastic show. They played all the classics and heaps of the new stuff, which was good but I enjoy jumping to stuff I know. I jumped myself soberish during that concert. The funnist was when I turned around to see Georgie atop some guys shoulders, and when he’d put her down he grabbed my arm and said “And how about you? How would you like to get up on Cloud 9?” I got to see Live or Let Die above the heads of the crowd which was very nice of him, bahaha Cloud 9.

Random. Wish id finished this at the time, cuz now i can’t remember stuff hehe. I think the rest of the night was just more alcohol and sore heads in the morning :)