Summer tour blog #1

Hi folks, Alex the roadie here. It has been a while since I’ve written a blog about Live and Loud, chiefly because we had a couple of months off from the tour!
This time around we headed off to the North Island and were absolutely stoked to welcome Wellington rock stars Supermodel to headline the shows. Once again, we stuck to our tried-and-true format of going away for a weekend, having a breather, and heading back out again.

I joined the entourage in Blenheim where I’d been staying and we continued our scenic drive up to Auckland from Christchurch, all of us anticipating picking up Supermodel at the Wellington ferry terminal with excitement. Supermodel were cool as it turned out; lovely, down-to-earth guys who were a lot of fun to tour with.

I drove us all in the van from Wellington to Taupo – I forgot how long it takes! I think it must have been my driving, because I’ve never seen such a rush and consequent diaspora from a van in my life. Everyone disappeared in various directions to find some food, wandering aimlessly until we finally settled on a nice waterfront café which I forget the name of. It was a nice affair, with quite a few of us (including me) experimenting with teetotalism.

We set off again for Auckland, this time with Mark of Supermodel driving. We swapped recording techniques and industry yarns, driving through some incredible torrential rain on the Auckland expressway (that’s a posh name for “motorway”) before arriving at our motel in Ponsonby around 2am.

I’d never explored much of Auckland on foot before, so the next morning I leapt energetically out of bed and trotted off down to Westhaven Marina, which was just down the hill. That was cool. I took some obligatory sky tower and harbour bridge shots before returning to the motel, where we left together for the load-in at the Whiskey Bar.

Obligatory harbour bridge shot

The Whiskey Bar. Turned out. To be. Fucking tiny. It’s a great bar for drinking with really nice staff; but if you’re a touring band, and you have a lot of gear, it’s a nightmare!

Now, I often resort to telling driving stories to increase a blog’s comedy factor, and this next incident is no exception!
You see, out of the kindness of my heart, I opted out of backing the transit van and trailer across a seemingly quiet side street off Ponsonby road, in favour of leaving the job to Rocky. No sooner than getting the van and trailer to a point where he was utterly committed (i.e. he couldn’t back out of the situation even if he wanted to), about a hundred cars decided they wanted to divert from the perfectly logical route down Ponsonby road and off onto the tiniest and most illogical side street in existence, which, as it happened, was where Rocky was currently residing, complete with van and trailer firmly ensconced across both sides of the road. There were so many cars, and so many attempts at reversing into the backyard of the Whiskey Bar, that I believe we actually caused a mini traffic jam that continued hundreds of metres down Ponsonby road. Auckland drivers must be used to it, because not one jafa even looked like tooting!
The van finally in place, it was discovered that the rear entrance to the venue was too small to fit even our smallest road cases through (let alone the piano), which meant we had to go all the way back out to Ponsonby road and take up about three car parks in prime shopping land.

Load-in at the Whiskey bar

The load-in itself I’d rather not have to recall.
The gig was packed out, especially for a tiny place like the Whiskey Bar. Some of us operate on this tour a bit like a jack-of-all-trades; my official job – system tech – is to set up the PA and all the audio paraphernalia that go with it, but of course I help lift the heavy things (that’s called being a roadie) and when Guy is indisposed, I mix the bands (sound/mix engineering). Tonight, we were short of a door salesperson, so I reluctantly put on a new hat after my other jobs were done and spent the evening taking money from the interesting perspective of being able to hear the band from the way they were facing (i.e. behind them). Let me explain:

When a band plays live, they usually have wedge-shaped speakers pointing back at their faces, into their already assaulted ear-drums. This is because among all the racket that goes on, they need to hear themselves with a bit of definition so they don’t make mistakes when they play – audience-facing PA speakers aren’t good enough because they have a surprising amount of directionality which means that you can’t hear much of what’s going on if you are behind them – other than the fact that they’re making a lot of noise.
Further making the current audio situation interesting was the fact that Sleeping Dogs don’t even have these wedge-shaped speakers. Instead, they have custom-fitted earpieces called In-Ear Monitors that block out all other sound while exclusively providing what each individual needs and wants to hear. So you can imagine, from my position taking tickets, that the concert sounded very strange indeed; only really being able to hear the drum kit and the distant rumble of the PA, which as I explained earlier, wasn’t facing me. 

Anyway, Sleeping Dogs played well, and Thomas’ voice was sounding great.

Next up were Supermodel. I was quite excited as it was my first time seeing them, and they certainly delivered. It was – apart from the joy of hearing their album which I love, live, for the first time – the strangest concert I have ever seen. Because of the minuscule size of the venue (I wasn’t on the door anymore), customers had to walk through the “stage”, past Mark on the guitar and Rose on the piano, and down through a seething mass of punters to the back of the bar where they would purchase drinks.

The temperament of a road-crew member is a fickle thing. A sweaty, high-energy set later, we were packing up the gear again; through tears of frustration as we pulled pianos, sub-woofer bins, amp-stacks and various road cases through a teeming crowd which had spilled onto the street. Normally there is a section out the back of a venue which is provided to load gear into the van, but readers will recall my story (above) about the Side Street Incident. At one point I remember struggling with a particularly heavy speaker and telling someone who was blocking my way to “GO!”, I looked up later and realised with glee that it was the newly-wedded Tamati Coffey of the Breakfast Show on channel One, surrounded by a gaggle of excited women.

We tumbled into bed after a quick trip to McDonald’s, and the next day left the lovely city of Auckland for the equally nice city of Hamilton.

 Upon our arrival there, we noticed straight away that the motel we were staying in was not fit for two bands and crew as it was in the middle of what appeared to be a ghetto and looked like it was about to fall over. So, instead, we made a rushed booking at the significantly nicer Novotel. I challenge anyone to find a place with more sumptuously comfortable beds!

A decidedly more comfortable load-in occurred, and we moseyed back over to the venue (the Flow Bar) to begin sound check after having some dinner. Guy really has the mix of these two bands sounding brilliant!
I noticed straight away that in the North Island, people seem to come to gigs a bit more. It was nice this night in particular that a lot of Supermodel’s friends came to the show, they seem to have quite a dedicated fan base.

Sleeping Dogs at the Flow Bar, Hamilton

Sleeping Dogs started off the night with a tight set, their newer material (which is going to be on the new album when it’s recorded) is coming together really nicely, and sounds as if it’s been part of their repertoire for years. Thomas’ voice continues to improve and I particularly noticed some virtuosic performances from all of the others – Ace on the guitar, Rocky on the bass and Infinite on the drums.

Supermodel impressed me again; what I thought had been played well in the previous evening’s cramped space once again bowled me over when I saw how much better they were when they didn’t have punters walking through their stage set-up! They closed the set with what I think is a perfect “last song”, their epic We All Will Love As One. It’s a really moving track, and I think the end of the night is definitely the place to hear it best. Earlier in the day, Thomas had asked if they could play a Queen number, so for their encore they did a note-perfect rendition of Freddy Mercury’s party piece, Don’t Stop Me Now. It was amazing.

Supermodel at the Flow Bar, Hamilton

All in all a great gig! We stumbled, tired and happy, back to the hotel where we left the next morning for Wellington and Christchurch. I really enjoyed this leg of the tour, and can’t wait to go on the next one. Thanks guys!

Alex

Tory Channel

Tags: Auckland, Hamilton, Live and Loud, Sleeping D, Sleeping Dogs, Supermodel