OK,
Sooooooo after an epic 4 planes from Tokyo later I arrive at Invercargill at the very bottom of the South Island of New Zealand (The most southerly city on the planet). I am met by my wonderful friend Sandy who is lending me her Van for the tour and has helped me greatly along the way.
I play my first show in NZ at the Gluepot and I meet and make a whole host of new friends. Special thanks and mention must go out to Ester, Phil and Ellen for playing awesome support spots that night; also to John for the promo assistance and Jordan for the sound assistance. 🙂 I got to perform some poetry amongst the songs. A first for a while as Japanese audiences tend to not know what you’re on about.
Infact it’s quite refreshing to be back in an English speaking country because you can hear gem quotes like the following:
“Free Piss, Good Shit” (A delighted reaction by a drinker upon receiving the news of a free beverage)
“The best solution is to just give it assholes” (A unique detailed description of how much pressure I should apply to the throttle in order to climb a steep hill)
So anyway first show down and I am now ready to Leave Invercargill and hit the dusty open road once more – Or am I? It’s about here that things start to go horribly wrong. In my first 2 hours out of town I break down 3 times on route to Dunedin. When I finally arrive at my destination, I’m feeling a little down trodden but ready to persevere. However the next day, I make it to my venue and then my PA equipment (which I had shipped from England) starts to chuck smoke out into the venue during sound check. Then it breaks down all together.
Thankfully the guys at the local music store (Rock shop) jump to my rescue and lend me a temp amp whilst they try to address the problem.
Then the venue underpays me 😦
Touring Musician Lesson 1: A guarantee is never a guarantee despite what the dictionary definition of the word may imply.
So I am in an unfamiliar city with a barely working Van and a broken PA. At this point I would have been ready to throw in the towel on the whole tour had it not been for the help and support of Adam Fitzgerald – a Viking metaller (Yes that’s right Viking Metal); and Matt Hall (A random dude who is studying medicine but was a full time mechanic). Adam provides a sofa to crash on and a place to use as a base (with a whole host of Bill Hicks DVD’s :); and Matt takes time out of his schedule to try and get to the bottom of the vehicle dilemma.
In the mean time I carry on playing shows in Dunedin. Most notable of these was the show at Refuel with the awesome supports from Matt Langley and Hana Fahy.
The crazy drunken Kiwi students are a wonderful contrast to the uber polite clapping of the Japanese. Not too often I get a mosh :D.
And so one week and a few hundred bucks later I’m informed that my Van is as good as she can be and my PA gear is newly mended. All just in time for me to venture off to my next show in a place called Milford Sound (About 5 hours drive away).
Fingers crossed I make it 🙂
Stoo
Stuart O'Connor 
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