G’day. Long time no writey. This blog recounts one of my rougher
experiences on this tour, but I’m sure it’ll prove vaguely amusing, and
possibly useful to folks booking dates over here in the future. Two things:
a) This blog has been heavily abridged. The original was a lot
grumpier, but possibly not fit for public consumption on this blog.
b) The Sydney show’s nuggety nature has definitely been the exception,
and 99% of the venue folks, bands and audiences we’ve met have been absolutely
amazing. You may as well hear about the 1% though, right?
So, we arrived in Sydney, caught up with Jock, and headed to our
accom; an apartment that friends of his had just moved out of. Dropped our
bedding, which Jock had kindly provided, and went in search of food. All kinds
of exotic ideas were had – supermarkets, pizza’s, anythingbutmoreMacca’s… it
was 11.30. We ended up back at Macca’s. Anywho, their free wifi was much
appreciated, and Seddon and I pushed our luck staying there until booted out
catching up on internet missions…
Back to the accom. Furious inflating of air mattresses. Bit of a
buzzy vibe here, for various reasons, but we all got some shut-eye, and awoke
the next morning to get back into the swing of another run of shows. Lunch at
Ikea (god, those places are a nightmare to navigate, but their super-cheap food
and weird Swedish vibe [do the Swedish tourism board pay them a commission?] is
pretty hard to resist). We then headed to the venue.
We rolled in super-early to say hi and check the place out, as the
promoter hadn’t given us much info. Met the duty-manager and in-house engineer,
Greg. He moaned about the lack of info from the promoter, for which we
apologised. When I introduced myself as the band’s engineer, he informed us on
no uncertain terms that the venue has a strict ‘no visiting engineers’ policy.
We tried to negotiate. By the end of our negotiation I was still politely
asking if I could simply plug a delay unit in and run dubs, while he ‘mixed.’
He continued to inform us that “when the Black Seeds and Trinity Roots played
here it was the same, man” (I don’t know when the BS’s last played Valve, but
having done a few of shows with them recently, [on functional PA’s, in front of
several thousand people per show], I’m gonna guess it was a decade or so ago).
You know the kind of conversation you have with someone in a minor position of
power, where they do all the talking, none of the listening, and keep repeating
“it’ll be sweet,” in a way that makes you very, very sure that it won’t…? That
kinda thing.
Anyway, we left to fill in some time before load in with the
following things clear in our heads:
A) This wasn’t really the venue’s fault. Apparently, somewhere in the
us-> promoter -> venue chain, someone failed to read the very, very clear
message that, “this band ALWAYS brings their own engineer. This is IMPORTANT.”
Anyway, apparently we need to make that clearer, somehow. Or start attaching
vouchers for basic literacy courses to all of our emails. Christ.
B) Nonetheless, this guy was choosing to be unnecessarily difficult
about even our attempts to come to a workable compromise….
C) We needed some
distraction. Off to Bondi!
Despite the nuggety times at the venue, we managed to enjoy a good
walk along the beach, played some hack, had a paddle, and felt a lot better
about life. Can’t wait to get up to Surfers’ and Byron now. Great to get some
time outside of a vehicle / other peoples’ houses / venues with idiots in them…
So, back to Valve. Another chat with our new ‘friend.’ More
politeness from me, asking to do the bare minimum required to keep the musical
elements of the band’s sound happening, while letting him do whatever it was
that was so crucial to keeping the fairly amusing 80’s PA running to his
satisfaction.
Venue guy takes very aggressive attitude. Like an overgrown child,
begins throwing toys out of the cot, threatens to cancel show, keeps ranting on
in his own super-dictatorial fashion. In the end, I acquiesce, decide to play
roady for the night, and hope that this guys can at least do a reasonable job of
mixing the band I’ve done 12 NZ tours, 300+ shows, an album and some very
expensive flights to Australia with. Go on then, I thought, if you’re master of
this particular audio universe, impress me. Make me believe that your terrible
attitude is somehow compensated for by your ability to mix.
Out o’ luck, Mike. So very, very out o’ luck.
Anyway, I’m going to attempt to hold my tongue on the audio quality
of this show. I don’t want to re-live it, and I’m not sure there’s much point
trying to relate how the whole affair sounded from my perspective. I will say,
however, that at one point a member of one of the support bands asked “can I
have some more monitor, and some reverb on my vocal?” Member of band then
realised that ‘engineer’ was not in the same room(!) and was instead, back at
the bar, pouring drinks. Hilarious, but…
Anywho, I struggled through the audio experience, and really enjoy
the musical content of Rufflefeather’s set, eventually retiring to the van for
some rather irritated sleep.
(RUFFLEFEATHER)
Sadly, I missed BonesBonesBones, who were apparently very, very cool
– Callum describing them as ‘a breath of fresh air’ (whatever that means). I
did catch some of Bloody Lovely Audrey’s set, which was pretty cool kinda Indie
rock, with a solid as hell bass player, some very buzzy guitar work, and a really impressive singer.
(Bones Bones Bones)
(Bloody Lovely Audrey)
Anywho, business time. I begin helping the band pile things on
stage, suggest to the house guy that the drummer’ll need a vocal mic(!), and
that he might want to DI the bass (the very beat up pg58 pointed at the tiny
bass amp doing nothing to inspire confidence). “It’ll be sweet, mate,” is now
his standard reply. Every time, he keeps missing the word “won’t” out of that
sentence…
Band on stage, first note of first song. Things are not ideal. I
make a bunch of suggestions, some of which are acted upon, things get slightly
better, and I go about dealing with the fact that the fact that the cable on
the ‘expertly’ mic’d bass amp was bugging out, and I can hear a huge crackling
noise coming through the stacks. Winning. At least the vocals were clear
enough, and the decent sized audience are enjoying the band’s solid playing and
near note-perfect singing. Talk about knowing how to fight when you’re back’s
against the wall. Basically 40 mins of me wanting to kill myself, the band
managing to play out of their skins, and still impress an audience, some of
whom I manage to hawk some merch to (might as well do something useful!). We
pack the hell down, and head to Johnny’s, where we’re now entrenched in the
middle of a sleepy morning.
Johnny (from Rufflefeather) absolutely rules. An ex-Dunedin cat,
whose favourite band is the Biff Merchants, he’s very kindly putting us up and
arranging the loan of some backline for a few shows. His girlfriend is a
puppeteer who operates life-size dinosaur puppets(!), among other things. Super
cool people, and it was really good to sit down at the end of a nuggety day
with a cold beer and some good company.
Thanks to the folks that came, especially those that bought merch.
You rule! You’re also the reason we’re doing this, and you more than make up
for us having to deal with the odd egotistical teabag. Same goes for the other
bands that played that night – always a highlight meeting new musical people,
and hearing some bloody lovely music (see what I did there?).
So, there you have it. All in all, we got in, we got out, we met
some lovely people (and one less-than-lovely chap), sold some merch, and headed
off to Newcastle, where further bizarre (good-bizarre, this time) experiences
awaited us.
If only people could just be nice to each other…
Cheers,
-Mike.
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