Bucket List!
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@MN5 said in Bucket List!:
@Crucial said in Bucket List!:
Well nearly 40 years in the waiting but I have just sunk a bit of dosh on tickets to see Paul Weller at the Royal Albert Hall.
Style Council were a pretty underrated 80s band if I recall. Some really good tunes.
I enjoy a bit of TSC stuff but don't listen to it that often. I wouldn't care too much if none of their tunes made the set list.
I'm expecting mainly his solo stuff but bonus would be a few Jam tracks.
The Godfather has 40 years of back catalogue! 12 solo albums, 6 TSC, 6 Jam. Luckily (for me) there isn't a new album to promote this year so it could be a bit of a greatest hits show. -
Just checked in to get my flight to Singapore to see GnR ...
I'm excited as all hell, 3 days out.
Gotta love Singapore, the promotor of the concert there, has so far sent 11 e-mails and 2 text messages with reminders, organisation etc. Ultimate nanny state.
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@MajorRage Enjoy mate! I loved it.
Let us know your thoughts after
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@Chris-B. said in Bucket List!:
@Crucial Very envious of that.
Disappointing thing about Paul is that he probably won't play any old Jam songs.
I'm waiting for him to sell out (not talking about ticket sales)!
I watched the Prime Rocks doco on the Jam, by the way Weller talks he wants to leave those days and his old band mates in the past
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@canefan said in Bucket List!:
@Chris-B. said in Bucket List!:
@Crucial Very envious of that.
Disappointing thing about Paul is that he probably won't play any old Jam songs.
I'm waiting for him to sell out (not talking about ticket sales)!
I watched the Prime Rocks doco on the Jam, by the way Weller talks he wants to leave those days and his old band mates in the past
He has stated that from the day the Jam broke up. He needed to move in different directions and couldn't see that The Jam provided that environment. Better to draw a line under it and move on.
Given that his whole philosophy is about moving forward and not back it is little surprise that suggestions of reforming, even for a one off, are an anathema to him.
However, I would be sure that a big portion of crowds to his gigs are there because they want to be there the night Bruce, Rick or both wander on stage during an encore for a one-off get together. hope springs eternal.
Paul and Bruce have even worked together again recently, but I think there is a disconnect with Rick.
As for the odd Jam song at gigs, he has been going long enough as a solo artist that he doesn't have the same qualms as he used to about having a look at old songs. Depending on show length he regularly plays 3 or 4 of each Jam and TSC songs at his gigs nowadays.
The other thing with his gigs is that they will often have a surprise guest appearance. -
@Crucial Yeah - I seem to recall Boy George coming on stage at Roundhouse.
I've had extremely mixed luck with "surprise guests"...
Elvis Costello calls on stage his good friend.... Russell Crowe! (WTF!?)
(made up for it the following night, getting on Nick Lowe instead) -
@Bovidae said in Bucket List!:
@jegga I expect the setlist will be different to the Chch gig. Enjoy!
Cheers mate I'll be happy with whatever he comes out with to be honest.
Btw there's a middle aged dude with a skullet and blue denim shirt on who clearly peaked way too soon dancing by himself back from the stage. People are getting selfies with him in the background and filming his dance moves which are best described as Mick Jagger crossed with Peter Garret. He is going to wake with a hangover tomorrow to find he's gone viral.
I suspect he's no stranger to viruses if looks are anything to go by.
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@jegga said in Bucket List!:
@Bovidae said in Bucket List!:
@jegga I expect the setlist will be different to the Chch gig. Enjoy!
Cheers mate I'll be happy with whatever he comes out with to be honest.
Btw there's a middle aged dude with a skullet and blue denim shirt on who clearly peaked way too soon dancing by himself back from the stage. People are getting selfies with him in the background and filming his dance moves which are best described as Mick Jagger crossed with Peter Garret. He is going to wake with a hangover tomorrow to find he's gone viral.
I suspect he's no stranger to viruses if looks are anything to go by.
Is that in Wellington? Must be the old midnight dancer fella from Barney's surely!
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@jegga said in Bucket List!:
@Bovidae said in Bucket List!:
@jegga I expect the setlist will be different to the Chch gig. Enjoy!
Cheers mate I'll be happy with whatever he comes out with to be honest.
Btw there's a middle aged dude with a skullet and blue denim shirt on who clearly peaked way too soon dancing by himself back from the stage. People are getting selfies with him in the background and filming his dance moves which are best described as Mick Jagger crossed with Peter Garret. He is going to wake with a hangover tomorrow to find he's gone viral.
I suspect he's no stranger to viruses if looks are anything to go by.
I know exactly the dude you are referring to. I've seen him at dozens of concerts in recent years, and spoke to him on one occasion. He's certainly popular.
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I'm not sure I'm ever going to feel well again. Shit got real in Singapore. I'm going to tell the story from the start.
When you let an almost 40 year old male with 2 young kids off the leash, in an Asian city for 48 hours, at which time, said male will attend a concert of a 90's rock icon ... I'm not sure what you are going to expect. But it happened.
Blasted down on Friday early doors, straight into a pub to watch the cricket, rugby, consume, consume and consume. At 2am, I was done, having taken about 250 selfies with people due to my red bandana, axl sunnies, and gnr singlet. I walked in in standard white man attire, polo, jeans etc, but somehow at some point, acquired some kit - I have no idea where from to this day. Little was I to know that at current figure, how much I actually did look like the singer - well, when standing on the scales anyway. Anyway, woke up Saturday on concert day with probably the worst hangover seen since the sevens a few years ago. Had crashed on the floor of a mates hotel, after my accomodation source had trap doored earlier on whilst I was busy signing off a bar tab for rining the bell at Mogambo's and subsequently buying the whole bar a shot.
So, as I raised my weary head, and casually checked my wallet to make sure my GnR ticket was still intact, the thought occurred to me that today was going be rather tough. To cut a long story short, after a casual lunch, an hour getting a foot rub and a long shower I started to turn for the better, so casually made my way to meet the boys at a hawker centre for pre loading. The food went down well, the ice cold beers, gentlemen jack less so, but then at 6pm, a mate of ours called Dave announced that our bus was here. So we trudged off and about 50 metres from the car park started to hear the relaxing, dulcet, calming, measured sounds of SWEET FUCKING CHILD OF FUCKING MINE. Our transport, was proper, proper baller. Decked out van, with a sound system Jonah would have been proud of, complete with ice boxes loaded with piss, a smoke machine, a light show and leather chairs .. there was a pole too, but I'm not sure what that was for ....
So we get in, in front of a crowed of about 100 people, and make our way out. Took for fucking ever due to the retardeness of Singapore to hold a 35,000 person concert (apparently) in the middle of nowhere with no public transport. Think Eden Park ... but in the middle of Karaka. Anyway, so fianlly get there, the drivers like I'm gonna fucking own this, and drives right through the crowds of people to drop us off about 2 metres from the entrance. It was fucking epic.
Anyway, get in, make our way to in front of the sound box, have about 15 mins to get some beers in , before they come on stage. So, I guess I should now right about the concert.
Nigh on 3 hours of their greatest hits. Fucking epic set list. Yeah, Axl is fat, and his voice is pretty bloody ordinairy these days, but the band is as good as they have ever been. Slash is just a god, Duff still has it (in a truck driver with egg on his shirt sort of way), Fortus is more of a lead guitarist than an Izzy, but he let nobody down, and Ferrer is arguably a better rock drummer than either Adler or Sorum are (to give credit to Adler though, the Appetite sound is lot to do with his drumming). They didn't miss a beat. The light show was awesome, the rig and setup was great. If I wanted to complain, I could say it wasn't even close to loud enough, but if you read the above, I was ok with that. And maybe the setlist was perhaps just a little too long ... don't get me wrong, but when you play November Rain (complete with about 5 minute intro of Layal), Coma and Estranged in full ... well, thats about 45 minutes right there. I would have happily sacrified a bit of knockin on heavens door, chinese democracy songs, and etc to really hear more of Axl giving it top beans as opposed to saving his voice. 90 minutes of old Axl, would shit on 2hrs 45 of new. He did his best on the jungle intro, and gave it shit for parts of Nightrain, Paradise & a couple of others .... but you know, he's old, he's fat - there's lawns to tell kids to get off these days and cheeseburgers to eat.
Annyway ... so it finished up at around 11:15am ... and given the complete clusterfuck of traffic, we were wondering how it was going to work. Litttle did we know ...
The driver of the baller-mobile, had basically ignored a whole bunch of Singaporeans cannot, and blasted his beast right through where you were supposed to stop and parked up EXACTLY where he dropped us off. People were streaming out everywhere wondering what the fuck this van was - he had paradise playing this time, with full light show, full smoke effects literlaly right in front of the main fucking gate. Oh, and he'd fully restocked the bar with fresh cans of beers, vodka, mixers and kit. I asked him if he had a cheeky durry ... at which point he leanded over and casually flicked open the glove box to see a selection of MArlboros finest. Unbelieveable.
Anyway, the boys piled in, and after rejecting about 5,000 people looking for a way home who were asking to join, trundled off through the crowed. We had the windows down, GnR on full tit, beers flowing for the 90 minutes it took to get back, literally crawling through swathes and swathes of people slowly trudging back to their cars/buses. IT WAS EPIC.
Anyway, the rest sort of peters out after that ... it was another late night and slow start yesterday, but nobody wants to read about that.
So, in summary ... yeah, GnR still have it, Axl less so, but fuckin hell, he gives it a go. Singapore is not a great place to go for a rock concert, but if you organise things right ... there is simply nowhere better.
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I'm going like your post @MajorRage before I start reading it as I know I'm going to enjoy it!
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@Hooroo said in Bucket List!:
I'm going like your post @MajorRage before I start reading it as I know I'm going to enjoy it!
We actually need a heart symbol besiide 'like' as I love that post!
Not in comparison to your story but when we left Western springs we saw a taxi parked in a drive way and asked if he was available and he said no and a $20 note prepay on top of fare and he was suddenly a yes!
Good times and I pity the people he was supposed to pick up
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Can't think of anywhere else to write this ... so here will do.
Sevens weekend in HK, the usual garb went on. I'm taking it a bit slower these days, but I still managed to get an invite up to one of the boxes from a broker and so a casual saturday afternoon was had. Anyway, about 3pm, was ordering a beer and heard some bloke talking away behind me, thinking a bit of familiarity to his voice ... turned around.
Richard. Hugh. McCaw.
Just standing there taking pic's having a chat to people. Couldn't believe it. Anyway, tried to man up and show I wasn't in complete awe of this guy whose a good 4-5 years younger than me, and managed to get a good 10 mins chat in. I asked some dumb fucking questions, thanked him for all the years etc. He seems pretty into his helicopters these days. Anyway, of all the stupid questions I asked amid some generic corporate answers ... I did ask him why he didn't mention Aussie in the post match WC final ... He just said, yeah, he definitely should have, but wasn't really thinking about his answers too much and was trying to enjoy the moment. Said there was nothing sinister/deeper in it and media tried to make something that wasn't there.
Anyway, bloody nice guy, very engaging and easy to chat to.