This is the shit that we're supposed to do when we have some spare time

Today we have three days off in Rotorua, which will be spent by half of us at the lovely house of Covell, half of us at the auntie of Hampton, and Jeremy and Madi incommunicado in Napier with another Jeremy relative. A sweet sweet glorious sleep-in at the Covell house was followed by a magnificently cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, hashbrowns, and tomato (made by Jess), followed by cigarretes (for all the lame people who smoke) in the sun, and then a coffee and beers at Essence (you should totally go there-Croucher beer kicks ass) in Ngongataha. Dr Suess has done some fine work in creating "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" and "Hortron Hears a Who" which we watched on DVD in the original cartoon format, followed by some Cirque Du Soleil, which blew all of our minds. Several drinks and a dinner fit for kings later, we played 'Trouble' (surely you remember that game from your days of youth) although in addition to the usual rules there were several drinking rules added. All in all Bugs was 1st, Jess was 2nd, Paul was 3rd, and Ben was 4th, but teamwork was the winner at the end of the day as everyone got conveniently drunk.
Coincidentally Hamptons 1 and 2, Vince, and Oscar went busking, made some money, and probably did exactly the same thing (probably minus the trouble).





So! this is a brief round up of what's been happening..




Paekakariki: Jackie and Jay came and rocked out the gig with us alongside Daile(?) she was awesome, put 6 of us up for the night on the floor of her house, the smallest house in Paekak, the gig was fuckin' awesome! Followed by some casual passes.



Wellington: A renegade gig by Rackets outside Cosmic Corner was disliked by the French dude next door.

Mighty Mighty is one of the most fun places to play, fantastic hospitality, it was almost like a flashback to the great times we had on the West coast back in the South Island (shit that seems like a long time ago!) The gig was fucking sweet

Anthony Lander, what a guy, he partied with us, came to the gig, let us stay at his pad, plays in a few awesome bands (The Tweeks, The Blue Onesies, Fulangchangandi), and was just generally awesome at accommodating us, and is an all round good dude. Thanks man!


Palmerston North: The Royal Hotel; what a place! It's set up for some epic gigs, which would have been equally as epic if anyone had come to the gig. Soss, was so helpful, and partied with us until the early hours of the morning in Dil's apartment. They have some good people involved with the game there. We were feeling the pinch from the $61 worth of parking tickets we achieved in Wellington, so a quick game of paper/scissors/rock sorted out who was to wake up in the morning and put money in the meter. Here a video of the grand championship final.



Gisborne: The North Island is looking promising so far (as far as pubs and characters go), there is an actual plane going through the side of Smash Palace, if that doesn't impress you then stop watching TV so much and be a real person. We met up with my cousin Aaron at the gig, and he showed us some awesome hospitality, even though we were being looked after and accommodated by the good folks at The Lolly Stockman Hotel. A short stopover at Wairoa (we're totally playing there next tour) and we were on our way.

Napier: The shops were all shut by the time we arrived so printing flyers was not viable, however we managed to burn some more copies of the split EP, and some cricket was had. Cabana was another awesome venue, well setup and poised on the edge of something awesome about to happen… Something awesome did happen that night, the best performances so far by all the bands, sadly only witnessed by a small amount of punters. 




The next day was full of rain, this is not a good thing because our van and trailer both suffer from leaks, and due to the nature of our profession, our equipment doesn't enjoy getting wet. Hopefully none of the gear that was left in the trailer during this nature spasm was injured, but we probably won't find out until next time we try and use it, which is Raglan on Wednesday. The rain Had subsided by the time we reached Tarawera and we stopped off at the Tarawera Tavern for some (fucking expensive) ice-creams, and cricket. The test match of Paul, Oscar, and myself, versus Ben, Callum, and Vince, with Logan as the super sub was tied at two all, and so had to be decided by a good old fashioned bowl-off (commentated by Logan)

Sorry, we'll get the rest of the vids up soon as.
Bugs