Land Down Under 2

Feb 20, 2009

Melbourne is where you will find us for the next 2 nights playing at the Corner Hotel both of which are sold out. Nice.
It’s always really nice to be in a city playing 2 nights because it means that after the first show number there isn’t really too much to do. Tonight I will wind up some chords, pack up the guitars and leave the rest of the gear in place for an easy day tomorrow.

The last couple of days have been pretty fun with an amazing soundtrack blasting through my ears of singer songwriters such as Peter Gabriel, Jose Gonzalez, Kate Bush, and Sinead O’ Connor. Yowzers!

We played 2 University’s in Newcastle, and Wollongong which are always interesting shows. The show in Newcastle smoked hard but I felt that the show in Wollongong was a little lack luster due to the University- Student Union Hall vibe. Again you can’t win them all and the good thing always is the show wasn’t super horrible at all.

The morning after our Wollongong show this girl named Souli who works for the promoter- Blue Murder took Beaver, Todd, Chris and myself to the beach so we could surf. Hahaha. Souli’s brother is actually a surf instructor and was kind enough to lend us all boards plus a quick lesson. I know all of us had sharks on our minds due to the recent shark attacks here on the east coast of Australia but it was more of a joking matter in the sense of “it’s a good day to die”….As it was. Super blue sky, sun out in full force and the beach. What more can you ask for?

I wasn’t quite sure the night before if I would be up for the morning beach run but I did set my alarm just in case so once that went off I felt okay, got a call from Chris/ Beave and off we went.

I can’t remember the last time I had a chance to swim in the Ocean as we did that day. Souli’s brother wasn’t at the beach yet so we all made our way to the water until he arrived. I definitely thought the water would be warmer as we all did but after a good 2 minutes swimming around it felt amazing and wasn’t that cold at all. The waves were pretty good so we all swam out to the surf, tried to body surf, and just play around in the waves. Getting pummeled and tossed around under water by waves is truly a neat thing however I guess you have to know your limits. These waves weren’t anything to huge and for the most part the ocean floor seemed like nothing but sand so there was no real risk of hitting rocks.

Soon after Souli’s brother arrived so we made our way to the parking lot to grab our boards that we would try and surf on for the remainder of our beach “sesh”. I have only tried surfing a couple times in the past while living in California as a teenager but it wasn’t something I ever picked up. Surfing is a pretty hard/ tiring thing that takes patience so while living in California I actually was really into body-boarding going a couple times a week for years. “Spongers unite!”

It was pretty hard actually getting out to where the real sets were breaking due to the ocean being covered in sea weed that would get bunched up and tangled in your leg leash. It was pretty insane actually trying to get out to the waves but you weren’t going anywhere because you had tons of sea weed tangled around you. Booo!

The first wave I managed to catch I actually stood up for a good 3-5 seconds which was pretty rad. I wasn’t able to catch the actual wave due to the problems expressed above however I caught the white water which was fine.
We all managed to stand up at least once or twice during our “sesh” but Beaver definitely had himself the best ride out of all us. At a certain point I looked behind me and Beaver was standing up, riding a wave that kept going taking him with it. Amazing!! Hang ten bra!!


Our “sesh” had to end shortly afterwards due to meeting the rest of the circus for lunch a at the Nan Tien Buddhist Temple (largest Buddhist temple in Southern hemisphere from what I hear) and then eventually driving to the next show which was in Canberra- last night. Canberra turns out to be the capitol of Australia which I had no clue about. For lunch I had myself a Curry Laksa, and some vegi drum sticks.

The show last night was definitely the “punkest” show of the tour which was pretty rad. The show was located at a community center in Canberra which was basically a hall with no barricade. Finally! All the shows thus far have been amazing but have had barricades which like I have mentioned before definitely holds back some of the energy. There is nothing like a show, with kids going nuts right up in front of your face and I knew for myself I would have a little more work on my hands which is also a plus.
Nothing to crazy happened and the show was a little “tamer” then I thought it would be but I am also comparing it to a lot of other shows with no barricades. With Propagandhi some of the shows are truly completely off the wall insane where others are still crazy but not off the wall.