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My Auckland Ramblings….
With only a third of the Auckland Town Hall seats occupied, local band ‘The Bads’ started a very small acoustic set (they should’ve had a couple more songs I think), they were good, enjoyable and an nice lead in for the noise and raw power of Buick 6. I got much more than I expected from the Buick 6 instrumental lead in, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. They definitely set the scene for a more ‘rock’ sound than I think some people were expecting. A small talk, delivered with a little dry humour, from Butch near the end of the set, let those who didn’t know find out who they had just been listening to.
Seats had slowly been filling during the 2 opening acts, and by the end of the Buick 6 set, the venue was probably two thirds full. This pisses me off – it was an hour after the ‘official’ start time and a third of the people hadn’t arrived??? Lucky for them (but a little bit annoying) was the half hour wait before the band returned with Lu. By the time Lu got on stage there were hardly any spare seats. The band had changed clothes, and there was our girl all dressed in black…..
So what did I think? From my perspective if was absolutely-effing-fantastic! It was very loud, at times the band was too loud, but I think they played it like a rock concert which you had to go with. The loud allowed me to sing out to my hearts content without annoying the people sitting next to me (I hope 😉 ). The loud made you feel the music – but that’s what turned me on to her music in the first place, she sings directly to my soul, I should feel the music!
Hubby and I were making lots of noise – lots of whooping and hollering from our end. The crowd were mostly right into it. All tickets were seated, no GA, and bugger all room between the first row and the stage. (We were up in the circle – but we had a great view, and there is nothing wrong with chair-dancing!). Lu told us right at the beginning, as it was the last show of the tour, they were intending to have a good time, and give us a good show. From my completely uninformed opinion, she seemed really relaxed and appeared to be having a very good time. She was dancing around quite a bit, talked a lot more than I expected.
Right from the beginning a few people stood in front of the stage and danced – by the third song, there were about 30 people up there and then the ushers started getting anxious, and started herding all the standing people to the side. But along all the walls and in spare spaces there were quite a lot of people dancing, which of course Lu loved. She commented a few times about how much she appreciated it, and that it was the first time on the tour that the audience had responded like that.Of course there were plenty of people who just did not appear to be enjoying themselves – we paid $NZ93 (~$US56) for our tickets down here, at that kind of money you want to be having a good time!
We’ve only been listening to Lu for about 3 years, and have exposed ourselves to as much of her music as we can find. I’m so glad I got the chance to see her live, to hear her and to earn the memory. She said she’d be back – she bloody well better be! 😀
I’m just glad I’m forewarned – I’ve learnt a bit reading this site, so probably have adjusted my expectations (neither good nor bad). I can see how if you are unaware of some of these idiosnyncracies you can be put off a bit tho’.
I’m trying to decide what to tell my hubby as he hates to have too much ‘outside’ information on his fave musicians (prefers to let the music speak for itself), but I don’t want him to be one of the ones disappointed by lyric books or false starts etc – I may inform him of a few little things….
Anyhow, we are travelling to Auckland tonight, staying up there for the night, and not home again until late the next day. If no-one beats me to it, I will try my best to at least get a set list for you all, but it will be a day or so late.
This is my first concert in about 11-12 years, I intend to enjoy myself!
Wow, just over 2 weeks to go, and finally the NZ shows are listed on this website 😮 Note, I also found out that “The Bads” are opening act in NZ – I don’t know them, but I’m no local music guru anyhow.
Seeing as the US tour is over – and I’ve loved reading all the reports, and set lists etc (thanks very much) – it’s now time for us to start getting excited. Auckland show in a month, this will be the end of the downunder tour (although the 2 NZ dates aren’t listed on the website).
Good concerts are extremely few and far between down here, so we’ll be glad to get a show – and have nothing to compare it to! Hopefully the merch table is well stocked with albums when they come, and I get to fill the gaps in my collection….
I thought I might be rude enough to ‘make a request’ too. I hope you don’t mind me stealing your thread, but we wait a long time for great concerts in NZ. So is it okay to call it a general “Request” thread for Auckland?
Anyhow I have a 7 year old son whose name is “Jackson”, anytime we play this song all 3 our kids, ages 3, 5 and 7 start singing along in full voice. They also sing it just for fun, we (obviously) find it quite cute. We would love to hear this at the concert….
