Mussel Inn & Mapua adventure...

MUSSEL INN & MAPUA

(by PD Reid)

Onekaka...Friday 16^th Oct

We left for Onekaka at around 5.30pm on Thursday and I for one was in for a great surprise as soundman extraordinaire Andy Biff had managed to get the time off work to help out with the two dates, hell yes!

After a long trip (too many stops eh guys...) we arrived at the Straight family home around 12 or 12.30? We all immediately hunkered down as we knew band mother Seedy would be getting us up before 7am (!) for the long drive to Onekaka. This drive is one hell of a long trip, and five guys with a loaded van trying to navigate Takaka hill has to be seen to be believed! Memory fails me but I believe we arrived at the Mussel Inn at around 3.30 – 4pm.

Now the Mussel Inn is quite something, an incredibly awesome rustic wooden style cabin/bar surrounded by beautiful native bush. Packing in and setting up was a bit frantic as meals were being served from 5pm onwards, so obviously we finished sound check at around 5.30-6pm (this is LOR after all...)

After this we all sat down to an excellent meal and sampled the Mussel Inns famous brewed beers. For those who don’t know there is a brewery connected to the Mussel Inn where an impressive selection of beer, wine, cider even homemade lemonade is made and sold exclusively at the bar. It’s all fucking excellent, especially that White Tiger eh Andy ;).

After eating, it was chill time until the start of the gig at around 10pm. I set up a rather shoddy merch stand literally 5 minutes before the start of the first song (I couldn’t set up until all the diners were gone, honest) and proceeded to watch LOR melt the locals faces with two amazing long sets. Andy and I both agreed that vocally this was the best gig of the tour so far, so massive props to Tono for his vocal warm-up techniques.

I haven’t talked to the other guys but I consider this to be one of the best venues in the country, amazing staff, cool as fuck locals, awesome beer (home brewed mind...) and some of the best scenery in the country. The owners, Andrew & Jane allowed us to stay in their log cabin and let me tell you this was incredible with more than enough beds for everyone.

We were also invited to a local party at the beach but the 7am start and us all being pissed as rats put an end to that idea (apart from Metz) who was the sole representative.

Mapua...Saturday 17^th Oct

So we woke up Saturday morning in the log cabin and proceeded to get showered before checking back at the Inn for an 11am breakfast of muffins and (excellent) coffee. After this we packed up both vans as well as we could with the rain and made tracks to Mapua. Now to get to Mapua from the Mussel Inn is around a 1.5 – 2 hour trip but of course the Takaka hill made things slightly more difficult. I don’t remember drinking that much but I was close to spewing on several occasions, fuck touring rules!

We arrived at The Tap at around 3.30pm, it was pissing down with rain and there was lots of stairs but harnessing the power of the blanket allowed us to get all the gear in there without any damage, thank god. Setup was a bit more difficult this time around due to the stairs, no P.A and most of us being hungover, but luckily, everything was checked before most of the diners arrived.

Now the food provided by the Woodstock Hotel, Hot Mamas and Mussel Inn was excellent but for me the pizzas provided by The Tap were simply astonishing! We even had pizza left over for later, a rarity on tour let me tell you...

LOR went on stage at around 10.30pm the first set however was plagued by guitar problems. It seemed like a big deal at the time but Callum of course, dealt with it like a pro! Second set was considerably better both performance wise and technically (Andy’s Fender Deville has some tone boy!).

In general, the locals at Mapua are an incredibly friendly bunch and I reckon at least half the punters there bought some form of LOR merchandise. Not bad for a rainy Saturday eh. Pack-up as always was a nightmare but tonight was especially bad with the knowledge that most of us were driving back to Dunedin straight after the gig (Milhouse I’ve got work tomorrow! Give him back his soul!)The locals thankfully helped out with carrying some of the stuff down those stairs. Also I’m not sure who will read this blog, but I will say one of the LOR crew was especially lucky that night, who was it? I’ll never tell!

The drive as expected was a fucking nightmare & I’m pretty sure me and Seedy didn’t get to sleep until at least 9pm the following night... fuck I think I’m hallucinating... Oamaru, Timaru, Chch and Lytleton next week, see you there! Also massive thanks to Andrew ‘Biff’ Straight for being an excellent soundman and one of the coolest guys i know (Awww), hope to hang out again soon!

Over and out – PD ‘fuckin’ Reid

Van playlist:

The Tweeks

Tono

Biff Merchants – Battle for Jubilee Park (Sorry Biff!)

Michael McDonald

LOR – Nuggety, tape version cos’ tape is hardcore!

North Island Fun (Aucks, Napier & Wellys)

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Thurs 8^th Oct – Red Bull Live Studio & Dogs Bollix (Auckland) by Callum

We woke @ the Coxys (Dan from MIC’s folks) pad in Auckland and enjoyed a flighty but scenic drive into the big city. We were welcomed into the Red Bull live studios by the awesome Grace. 

We set up the studio and played a psychedelic set!!! (3 songs each going for 10mins) Left or Right are officially the first band to blow up the power in the studio!!! We were buzzed out but the crew came through and they were stoked that we pushed it to the extremes. I guess we were just too hardcore for the mish haha, there was a lot of homage paid to HDU, HLAH, The 3D’s & Little Bushman during the set. I think it would have been a nice change for them instead of having to sit through a classic radio friendly set. The video of the studio set is now up on the red bull live studios website.

http://www.redbullstudio.co.nz/live-sessions/left-or-right

It will also be the first ever red bull live act to be aired on Juice TV! Yeya!

5 or 6 Red Bulls later we were off on our mish to the Dogs Bollix to set up. The Defendants smacked up a meeean set before we went on. They performed a magical version of Sabbath’s Fairies Wear Boots that got the crowd off their arses.

Rodgey Grauwmeijer came after the music awards and took some primo photos! I broke a string and I had 2 gat techs suss my mish before I could say “Oh fuck I’m gunna have ta do the Gary Moore trick and peel extra hard on the remaining 5 strings”. Played sweeeeet. Great to catch up with PD Mac, Lee Kerr and the many other cats that came out on a Thursday night and the cats that took Friday off just to come and get on it. Pack out ... got ta bed @ 4am.

9am up and on the road to Napier, apparently it takes 6 or 7 hours so we gunning it. Cant wait for Napier show tonight, they have a supportive live music scene there so should be sick!

Callum

Friday 9^th October – Cabana (Napier)

Hey guysh. It’s been a while between blogs for me as you’ve been in the capable hands of Pete, Andy & co. I am stoked to report that Napier was a wicked show.

We arrived into Napier well on time as we were only scheduled to load in to the venue (Cabana) @ 6pm. This allowed us to go into town on missions. Most of the lads took fliers with them and did a bit of a promo run to stir up a bit more interest in the show. In true Seedy styles I snaked off to the internet cafe to try and get a wee preview of the Red Bull Live video which had just been posted.. I managed to have a little listen but there was no image – bugger. So none of us have had a chance to check it out yet... We’ve heard good stuff about it though so fingers crossed there. Yes we did blow up the power in the studio due to an overload of sound and lighting. Fortunately we were at the end of our allotted 30 min set. Anyway off topic there.

We are in Napier. Back to Cabana @ 6pm and we meet Deanne to load in and set up. Now to be completely honest, this venue fuckin rocks. It is a music venue run by musos for musos. Everything about it runs smoothly and the PA was a dream for Andy to work with – not to mention how good our onstage sound was. You really can’t beat awesome monitors and we certainly had that. Probably the only venues/festivals that come close for me in terms of good monitors are Revolver in Queenstown & PHAT 09, oh and how could I forget Feastock 09. Not sure about the other lads on that one.

We were really stoked to have 2 awesome local bands on the bill for this show – “Blvd. Nights” & “The Boil Up”. Now these two bands were seriously talented. Boil Up is a smaller line-up of a band called “Tropical Downbeat Orchestra.

Supposedly the full line-up is 7 members. For this show they had 4 and it was fuckn awesome. Their drummer is the drummer from Jakob! They also had a supremely talented female vocalist and an equally impressive trumpet player + bass/mpc maestro called Willie. The other support act was local heroes “Blvd Nights”. These guys play a bunch of feel good tunes that keep the crowd momentum going perfect. A great front partnership between Pauly & Jess vocally and a fuckn solid rhythm section to boot with Jaffy & Joe.

With the venue being in a residential area we had to cut our set to an hour and be finished up by midnight. We ended up playing about 15 mins overtime. Due to a variety of things we played a wicked set. Firstly the PA and sound in general is awesome. Andy had us sounding sweet out front and on stage. Secondly having played a good 5-6 shows already on the tour we are starting to really find our groove and regain our tightness. Also a bloody decent crowd always helps a live performance. I know we definitely lift our game when there is a good crowd in front of us. It was a shame to have to finish when we did as I feel we were just starting to warm up! Pack down was fairly swift as we were contemplating driving straight through to Wellington to be ready for the next show. Load out sucked as it was absolutely fuckn pissing down by this stage. Thankfully common sense prevailed and we ended up staying @ Joe’s (Blvd.Nights bass player) place. Joe and his flatties were most hospitable in providing us some beverages plus a spare room to all kip in. Metz made a fire and the rest of us crashed out in the spare.

So all and all a wicked night – good crowd and a good amount of merchandise sold on the door by PD Reid. Will report back soon with stories from Wellys....

Saturday 10^th October – Hole In The Wall (Wellington)

We left Joe’s place in Napier about lunch time on the Saturday. We were only due to load into “Hole In The Wall” in Wellys at 7pm so we had plenty of time to make the trip. It continued to rain until we got clear of Napier – very unusual I thought for the east coast of the North Island.

We arrived into Wellys just in time for the Stags clash with Tasman. What a dream result – 41-0!!!! None of us could recall seeing the Stags put a team to the sword the way they did against the Mako. Well not since the old division 2 days maybe... After the match it was around the corner to Vivian St and set up @ Hole In The Wall. Now 7pm load in/set up/soundcheck is far too late for my liking. Especially with how much we like to put into setting up a show and with Logan’s lighting and the merchandise area to set up. We like at least 3 hours minimum before doors open. So we were on the back foot from the start as 7pm is the venue’s policy. It was all hands on deck as usual and the gang did a wicked job getting everything set up and ready for 9pm doors.

We’d been looking forward to this show for a long time – as we’d be linking up and playing with a bunch of old cobs. The first band for the night was “The Deceivers”. These guys are formerly from CHCH and have moved up to Wellys in the last few months. This was actually their first show since relocating. They’d supported us in CHCH 3 times on our previous tours. Their original bass player had recently moved to London so they had a fill in for the night but their singer Tom mentioned they were looking at going down the road of 3 piece – I like a lot… 3 pieces kick ass! They played a sweet 40 min set which included a whole bunch of their classics – very cool. Next up was the mighty Slur-Tones - also fresh from relocating (Wanaka). These boys are the shiz. They played a phat 60min set and I managed to film a couple of tracks. These guys are on the bill for RIPPON in 2010 – make sure you catch them as they are going to explode in the coming years… Much chur as they also pulled a wicked crowd.

We played a 60-70 minute set and for the first time on tour played all the tracks off “Nuggety”. It was a really enjoyable set – heaps of room to jump around and good onstage sound. I do think we all had the big driving mish and early morning ferry crossing in the back of our minds so this may have subdued us a touch… After our set an old Dunedin bud of ours “Fil Basik” played a tight wee set of his take on Drum n Bass to round out the night. Was great to see him back in action again – he has wicked live energy. Those who had stuck around really appreciated this end to the evening. Our pack up and load out was as efficient as ever as we had to be out of the venue by 2:30am and a ferry to catch in the morn. It was good to have the extra help of Pete Crisp who was coming back to Dunedin with us. 7 in the van and allll the gear – fuckn tight!

We were due at the ferry terminal at 7.20 so we just decided to stay up until then. I pulled the sober driver card as I was due to drive the first leg of the journey in the South Island. We all went back to the Slur-Tones place and the lads had a few bevys to wrap up the north island leg of the tour. We then watched some of the footage from the evening. Time flew by and it was then time to head to the ferry. The best news ever greeted us upon arrival as Andy went onboard up to the bar to check if there was a PA as we were on a different boat. The onboard manager told us we weren’t required to play our set as the ferry was jam packed, it was 7 in the morning and that we looked like utter shit. Stoked!! So the lads all found little nooks and crannys and crashed out. I found a wicked pozzy under the bubble bobble arcade machine.

We got to the South Island about 11am and started the big journey south. We made it to CHCH about 5.30 and got Metz on the KnightRider to Invers. Then a BBQ dinner + a bit of backyard at Andy’s place before the final stretch of the road (chur Muzz, Aileen & Mike!) We made it into Dunz about midnight. So the first 8 dates of the tour are completed – 9 to go, we can’t wait! Gotta make a load more cash to pay everybody back! If I had to pick my fav shows so far I’d have to say the West Coast & Napier. Much much chur to Andy for all his help and doing our sound. We will have Mikey for the remaining shows. Also to PD Reid and Logie for making the shows what they are. We are chilling for a few days now before heading back up to Takaka on Thurs for the next shows…

We’ll have some more stories after Mussell Inn & Mapua…

Seedy out

A whole lot of Hackas

I have never seen so much stuff go into a van.

After an easy night admiring Bowie's package in Labyrinth, we sloathed into Hot Mama's about midday on monday to re-pack the gear. For the South Island we had two tour vans, for the North Island we needed to squeeze everything into one. I was dreading this would be a time where someone would get flighty about having to leave a sock behind. Pats on bums to everyone invloved, the van is packed to literal breaking point. More on that later.

The rest of that day was pretty much themed on cricket. We headed back to Nelson and went down to the park with a few beers, some snacks, and a cricket set provided by Seedy's brother Pete (who was also providing accomodation for the night). It was great to run around in the sun after hiding inside in Dunedin for the two weeks prior to tour. I got stuck in 13 year old Andy mode and starting smashing 6's without thought as to how much fun the other guys were having. I soon lost the ball. Hack bomb. Game over. After a short stint of classic catches we headed home to find a feast instore.

Metz had whipped up one hell of a curry, and I smashed the shit out of it. Cheers Metua. We now had to figure out how to watch the cricket without sky, so I started to check out somewhere on the web to stream it. I somehow got hypnotised by an ad saying "STREAM CHAMPIONS TROPHY FINAL LIVE" and ended up giving money to a site that is pretty much a search engine for illegal video streams. Sucker punch hack bomb. Anyway we eventually found a reasonable stream but the cricket turned out to be pretty shite. The Black-Caps batted like the Carisbrook Dunedin U12's.

Waking up at 9am after the cricket was a bit gross, but it happened in a merry haze of tour numbness. We got in the Caravan and proceeded to Quogan's girlfriend's parent's place to pick up the younger Hampton and head to Picton. We pretty much arrived on time at the ferry, but hacked one as we got asked to drive on but had about 3 guys still taking a piss at the public toilets down the queue. A few guys in high vis vests were on the case and had it all sussed. We were soon on the ferry and sorted out our gear for the show in the Karori Rip Bar. 

Once we were out of the sounds things started getting buzzy. "We would like to inform all passengers that conditions in the strait today are...not favourable.". The boys had started playing a set and 4m swells began smashing shit around. Callum was getting thrown all over the show, and Seedy ended up on his back. The harbour was far calmer and Wellington sped by like sonic the hedgehog. State highway 1 was closed due to snow so we had to go north via Ohakune. We had a quick stop at Seedy's Aunty and Uncle's place. They made us some bangin mince on toast, peas and all. Fuck it was good. At 1.30am we sifted out of the van and hunkered down at the Hampo's Auntie's place, just out of Rotorua. Thanks for the bed's Andy and Gene. What an amazing place. They have a free range chicken island. On to the Hacka of all Hackas.

This afternoon we were making our way to Auckland to spend the night at Dan Cox's place. About 12km from Tirau the van started to sway occasionally, we put it down to the gusty winds. 1km later the Van swerves violently a couple of times, Callum instinctively slows down a touch, and then BANG!!!! Chaos. Hack Bomb. The left rear wheel had decided touring sucks and detached itself from the van. Hampo somehow avoided any other vehicles and guides the van on to a grass verge where I called AA and we wait for help.

I had to describe the damage to the AA lady on the phone and it seemed grim. Two of the wheel nut studs had broken off and the others were all fucked, I was starting to get anxious we wouldn't even to get to Auckland for our Red Bull session tomorrow. When Brian from AA turned up and flicked the van on the back of his truck I breathed a sigh of relief. Brian seemed pretty confident he could fix our wheel in a jiffy. He whipped the van, and all its contents (including the band) back to Tirau, jacked it up and banged in a few new wheels studs. I can't thank Brian enough for the quick work he did and for his positive attitude. We ended up losing only two hours and got all the way to Jo and Justin's place, just in time for the lasagne to come out of the oven. What a feed!!!!! Thanks to the Cox's for putting us up and managing to ensure only two of us have to top and tail tonight! A T Biff

Debut Record "Nuggety" available in stores

Debut Record "Nuggety" is available in South Island N.Z Record stores on Vinyl & C.D!

Invercargill - Play It Again Records (Cambridge Place Arcade Esk St)

Dunedin - C.D & DVD store (Meridian - George St)

Wanaka - Play It Again Records (Ardmore St)

Queenstown - Play It Again Records (O'Connells Shopping Centre - Beach St)

Nelson - Everyman Records (Hardy St)

"Nuggety" is also available on ITunes worldwide or on Vinyl, C.D & Cassette via leftorrightnz@gmail.com

"Nuggety" will be dropping in North Island N.Z stores next week :)

RED BULL LIVE TO AIR SHOW TOMORROW @ 3PM ACROSS ALL B NET RADIO STATIONS

AUCKLAND - 95BFM
WELLINGTON - ACTIVE
PALMERSTON NTH - CONTROL
TARANAKI - MOST FM 100.4
CHURCHURCH - RDU
DUNEDIN - 91FM (RADIO 1)

Nelson/Motueka and beyond...(by PD Reid)

Phat Club

After an amazing night at the Woodstock hotel, we all woke up well rested and feeling good about the great nights we just had on the west coast. Massive thanks to Millsy, Elaine and their two gorgeous golden retrievers Jess & Abby and for their unbelievable hospitality!!

Feeling quite good we all rolled up to Woodstock to load out the gear at around 11am(at least an hour later than we agreed) & prepared ourselves for a long and arduous drive to Nelson to play Phat Club. The drive was going sweet and we were making great time until sleep deprivation, hunger and general nugginess caused us to miss the turn-off to Nelson and arrive in Westport. This added an hour to a nuggety drive as it was! It turns out this would be the start of many mishaps to come, as we were all about to experience the downside of touring, LOR style....

Feeling pretty awful about having missed the turnoff (Seedy and Hampo were asleep in the back), we arrived at PD Marshalls pad in Nelson at around 7pm and he sussed us out a wicked munch to keep our spirits high. We started packing in to Phat Club at 7.30pm and I started setting up the merch desk with seedy. The merch desk at Phat was pretty much tailored for touring bands, with ample desk space and plenty of space to tuck away the merch. Also Phat had sussed out a someone to work the door so I could concentrate fully on selling merchandise.

Once again Quogy’s strobe was interfering with Callums guitar during sound check. While this has happened before ,the general nature of touring caused Callum to nugg out slightly more than usual. Running behind as usual (hacka!) the support bands for the gig Dog Spew thankfully decided not to sound check which allowed us to get back on schedule. Wicked Draw Soundsystem the first of the supports came on around 10pm and played for a good half hour. Then Dog Spew went on and kicked some serious arse! Obviously being behind the merch desk I couldn’t see the band (anyone who knows Phat Club will know what I’m on about), but I could hear them and the sounded like a really authentic and exciting punk band, Check them out! Now this is where things start to go wrong... When LOR went on - a technical glitch (not Andy Biffs fault) meant that the intro Mullins tape was still playing as the DJ was still on, making for a very awkward and unprofessional start to the gig as LOR were standing around like ballbags for a good minute after the fuck-up. They also had tonnes of amplifier problems with Seedy's amp cutting in and out and annoying tuning problems for pretty much the whole gig. Also some nuggety as punter who was totally tripping on something & managed to rip a pair of grutz, refused to pay for them and then accused me of stealing her tobacco! Thanks to the Phat guys and Jasmine for sussing that one out as I was getting pretty fucked off! What else, ah LOR lost their one and only tuner (hacka!) and I managed to rip and wet the LOR A0 tour poster (another hacka!). The last band Pants Off were extremely good though none of us could really enjoy it as we were all getting nuggety and had to pack up and out.

As we were driving back to Boof’s (head of security) place to get on the piss, Seedy classically got pulled over by a cop for a breath test! Seedy had had a couple of beers and all of us were tripping and I swear you could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet...The result... a failed youth, but of course seedy having his full and being over 20 averted further action, yeh boi! Oh and the cop said we have a busted front light which is why he pulled us over in the first place, bad buzz! But we finally made it back to Boof’s place, hit the piss with him and another absolute good kent haha maybe this night wasn’t so bad after all! Cheers Boof you are a legend!

Hot Mamas

We woke up from a hard night on the piss at Boof’s and all collectively decided to shoot the gap to Motueka to set up at Hot Mamas for the gig. Seedy went and picked up Lou (manager of Hot Mamas) from the airport and we all arrived at the venue at around 3pm and it was all hands on deck to set up the mish. After setup Lou and the crew hooked us up with a mean munch of gourmet pizzas, salad and wedges, choice!

We arrived back at Hot Mamas at around 9pm after dropping off our bedding at Lou’s, but decided to hold off from starting due to the Tua/Cameron fight. A bar down the road was charging 5 bucks to see the fight and a few of the guys decided to go check it out. The guys classically arrived back only 20 minutes later, after Tua knocked out Cameron in the second round. What a bunch of hyped up bullshit!

Soon after this we got the call from Lou to start up, as a good sized crowd was beginning to mill in from the bar that had just showed the fight. At the start of the gig, PD Reid managed to have a complete hackbomb and unplug the ipod before the Mullins try commentary had even finished. Fuck, I don’t know what I was thinking except that I really wanted to recharge my ipod! Needless to say I feel awful, but LOR recovered like pros and the rest of the gig was an astounding success. The combination of a great crowd, a good amount of merch sold and the Hot Mamas crew taking extremely good care of us (free pints all night!) meant last night’s anticlimax had been recovered for. LOR were on the fire, and the latest addition to the set list, a scorching cover of Cream’s – Sunshine of your Love was lapped up by the eager crowd.

After the gig we all started drinking the bar dry with the knowledge that we didn’t have to pack our gear out as there was a few days before the next gig. A few hours later, us and the Hot Mamas crew arrived back at Lou’s place for continued partying, estimated time of sleep around 7.30am!

I woke up at around 9am to take a piss only to find a large puddle of someone else’s piss (a tour member who shall remain nameless...) all over the kitchen floor! The culprit was in no state for a clean up as he was soooo messy, so me and two others managed to suss it out. After this we all went back to bed until the arvo. We got up, found some food and went to a local bar to watch the NRL grand final. Next instalment of the blog will be after the Auckland gig. Also earlier today, we discovered that our good friend, LOR crew member and brother - Peter Crisp’s daughter had just been born! Massive love to Crispy!

Over and out – PD ‘fuckin’ Reid

TALES FROM THE WEST COAST

Hey people, have only just managed to get to a computer! Here are the tales of the West Coast. PD Reid will be updating from Nelson & Motueka after tonights show.

Barrytown Hall, Barrytown (Weds 30th Sept 2009)

I don’t want to forget anything about this adventure so I’ll just start at the beginning of the day.

7.30am

I had set the alarm as we wanted to catch the last 25 overs of the cricket. This was a bit of a non event though as we only needed 9 runs to win. NZ through to the semi-finals of the Champions trophy – all is well in the world!! Went back to bed as I had a slightly sore head from Jaggy on the drive up. Andy charged on and went for a run to shake of his developing cold. He then cooked up a choooice fry up to get us motivated for a big first day.

10.30am

Departure in convoy from the Straight residence. Logans new tranny has really stepped up – as we chunged it through the pass. Bloody nice road. Made a brief stop in Springfield to admire the donut the town received at the time of the Simpsons movie release. It had been badly burned by some hackas and most of us got soot and ash all over our only tour pants... not a good start.

Stopped in @ Greymouth supy to stock up for Barrytown. There was a $2 beer bin with a whole stack of Green Man 500ml botts – sorted! In true tinny form I managed to con the checkout staff into swiping through big botts of emersons for $2 each too!!

3.30pm

We arrived @ Barrytown – initially driving right through it. What a crazy night we were to have. We’d heard so much good stuff about this place and to expect the unexpected. It didn’t disappoint. Loaded into the Barrytown hall and began to transform it into our venue for the night. Metz assembling his usual monster kit, Logan attaching lights to trampolines, Hampo & Andy on PA & sound duty. PD & I were on merch set-up. I love setting up the merch area – different everytime. PD was also on general missions.

We were ready to soundcheck about 7pm and it sounded fuckn sweet, awesome to be using our old PA again. Andy had it all purring.

THE GEG

The first whispers of a newspaper fuck up crept in about 9pm when a couple of cats started rolling up. Being a Wednesday it was always going to be fairly quiet but it didn’t help with the paper getting the wrong date. It soon became clear that we’d be playing to an “intimate” audience. We weren’t about to waste what was a wicked sounding rig.

A usual bout of “Kick and chase by Mullins” to start off the show and an epic 20min version of Park Street. We played an hour first set and then had a nice lengthy break to refuel and chat to locals who’d turned up. The second set was fucking hilarious. I think it was halfway through a 20min version of Hitchy when the fits of laughter began. Speaking between songs was an absolute mission. Andy had some mental delays & loops going on and Logan was doing some cool screams over the top of our jam. Pack down was grim but I could not stop grinning. We also had Retrophonic Funk Machine pumping through the PA so everything was mint.

So overall a bloody awesome start to the tour. Barrytown fuckin rules – we will definitely come back here but we’d look at a weekend show as I think the days of midweek benders are becoming less frequent in these parts. However getting the right date in the paper would be nice – its not as if u can do a quick text around up here! On the way back to Hoki now – tonight will be awesome.

Woodstock Hotel, Hokitika (Thurs 1st Oct 2009)

Hello. We are on the drive to Nelson for tonight’s show @ PHAT. Will be phat to catch up with Dave & the crew. Here is a rundown of last nights show @ the Woody.

We arrived at the venue late afternoon and got stuck into set up. Had everything set up and looking chipper by 7pm. A few of the locals kept us entertained with some humour during the set up. 

Dinner was fuckn epic as always at these choice venues. The Hampton bro’s, Metz & PD Reid all had steaks and AT Biff & myself had the local Drunken Wild Boar served on mash. Simply superb. To compliment the meal we had various emersons 500mls that we’d managed to get from the same $2 bin in Greymouth. Was stoked with that sneaky mish – they couldn’t tell the diff between Greenman an Emersons. After the munch we hooked back to the accommodation to freshen up for another sweaty rawk show. Our hosts were Millsy & Elaine. Fuckn top people. Can’t speak highly enough of their generosity in putting up 6 of us. More about their place after the show.

We played another 2 set show – a shorter first set tonight although we have started this trend of playing Park St for 20mins. I think we are really enjoying these shows with no support as we have to fill out a lot more time – which means we get to jam more. Having support is always awesome though. A couple of cats from Barrytown had made the trip over for the show so we had another good catch up with them – including Parrot who sussed our show over there. She’s a legend – gave me a full demonstration of how she managed tip a 6 foot giant @ a Bad Brains gig. The yarns she tells are excellent value. She is in a comedy duo with another lady. They are planning on doing a show down in Tuatapere after they’ve written a new script. A good smattering of people boogying on the D floor for the entire show – fucn love seeing peoples reaction to the heavy sections out of nowhere. 9 times outta 10 they just follow us and go hard as well. Great stuff. We got asked to play Park St again as an encore. As it was late we said sweet but I said to the lads we’d better keep it to album length at least (9.33). No chance – another 20 minute job. O well.

Post gig – we had a full pack down and then Logan & Metz had a rock off to see if we’d load out the gear into the wagons on the night or in the morn. Logan won and we did the latter. I foolishy challenged Metz to a jug skull with straws – he kicked my arse. Back to Millsy’s after a few more jugs with Colin (the owner) also legends. Millsy introduced us to the McMills for supper. This consists of one whisked egg and a slice of cheese put in the microwave for a minute then slapped between bread – kiwi as & fuckn tasty! He then showed us his greenstone collection which is off the chain. Some truely epic and fascinating stuff. Was wicked to hear about a whole lot of our history & culture that I didn’t know about. I know all the lads were blown away. A cheeky game of darts and then cats started sloping off to bed. People said it rains all the time on the coast – we didn’t believe them after such mint weather in Barrytown. True to form though its positively pissed down ever since. Woke this morning with chronic headache and sandpaper throat and so the tour goes on! Hoping to get to Nelson by 6 as Petey Marsh is cooking up a roast for the gang!

Churrr!

Seedy out