Grohl-ish

On the weekend I took Eve to the Logan Campbell Centre for a magic show. The show was a bit lame. Amusingly, one of the tricks involved an small explosion and puff of smoke, this set off the smoke alarms and everyone had to evacuate the building. Plenty of people decided it was a good time to leave.

Anyway, I had time to reflect that the last time I was at the Logan Campbell Centre was in 1992 to see Nirvana in concert.

By coincidence, I also went to see Foo Fighters last night at Western Springs stadium. It was a big show — about 50 thousand people all outside in the rain. I enjoyed it, though there was plenty of filler that could have been cut to make a more focussed and intense gig.

That also made me think back to my first ever big stadium concert — also at Western Springs way back in 1986. I seem to recall that there was rain that time too . . .

Same old same old

There was an election in NZ on the weekend. No great changes in the political landscape. We’ll be having the same prime minister and a very similar cabinet.

Went to the Christmas parade in the city on Sunday afternoon. A lovely day, but mostly the same things in the parade as last year.

Does nothing change?

Mudbrick

Nice weekend. Saturday we went to the Grey Lynn park festival.  It is an annual event and there is plenty to see and do and eat.  The focus is totally on the local community, so the music stage is mainly school groups and other local things (we watched the Ponsonby Intermediate School Ukelele band and some teenage rappers).  Since the election is only about a week away the politicians were infesting the place, a bit of a pity.

Then on Saturday afternoon I headed to Waiheke island with the band.  We were playing for a wedding at the Mudbrick Restaurant and Vineyard.  It is a wonderful venue and we were provided with a fine meal and wines.  The audience seemed to enjoy our performance.  We stayed the night in a small and ancient caravan (not at the vinyard). But at least it was right on a beach.

Sunday afternoon we did some painting in one of the rooms of the house.

Civic theatre

Went out last night to the Civic theatre. It is a fabulous place with a starry “sky” ceiling and crazy arabesque decor. I hadn’t been there for over 30 years and have vivid memories of seeing movies there as a child. There is more information here. Anyway, we went to see Eddie Izzard, who was as surreal and amusing as ever.

Walking home we encountered the Art in the Dark festival in Western Park. It was a wonderful event with lots of amazing illuminated installations. The place was crowded with tipsy and stoned young people and everyone was having a good time. Watched a “performance” involving a woman in bridal gown and a man with angel wings and a morning suit flying around hanging from wires. Some pictures are here.

Victoria Park Tunnel

The Victoria Park Road Tunnel is now complete and it was open to the public on Saturday for a “walk through”. The tunnel is only about 400m long and it goes under a park. The park itself is reclaimed land from the 1890s, formerly beach/estuary/mudflats. So the actual digging of the tunnel was not hard work, but apparently there was a lot of rubbish among the landfill, and obviously it is a challenge to keep the water out.

Part of the tunnel construction project involved moving an old pub away and then back again. There is a video at the above link — it’s worth watching.

Anyway, my daughter’s school was involved in the walkthrough so I spent a few hours there collecting donations.

Labour day

Today (Monday) was the “Labour day” public holiday (celebrating workers rights — not sure why we don’t do this on May 1st like everyone else, but it is a nice spring holiday). It was a lovely day.

The extra special feature was that the All Blacks won the rugby world cup in a very tense match against France last night. So there was a huge victory parade this afternoon along the main street of Auckland. We went along but the crowds were so dense (pun intentional) that we couldn’t see much. Still waved and applauded the plucky All Blacks and managed to get a glimpse of the gold cup being held aloft.

Then walked to “The Domain” (a big park near the city) for a concert and family fun day. There was a great vibe — lots of people with All Blacks face paint and waving flags. Mainly spent the time queueing with Eve so she could go on bouncy castles.

It is a pity the world cup is over. There was such a great vibe for the last 6 weeks. Now all we have to look forward to is the elections. Boring!

School holidays

Now that Eve is at school we have to deal with school holidays (pre-school childcare was all year round). There is currently a 2 week school holiday, but the university term is still running and so I am busy much of the time. A bit of a challenge. We are going up north this weekend to let my parents look after Eve for a few days.

I was in the library the other day and “The Arrival” by Shaun Tan caught my eye. It is an amazing wordless graphic novel. Some of the finest drawings I have ever seen.

Reminds me that I have forgotten to mention the Auckland Art Gallery, whose fancy new building has just opened. The new building is really nice. On the sculpture terrace there is Jeppe Hein’s `Long Modified Bench’, which is a cross between a park bench and a roller-coaster. Cute.

The two big news stories in NZ at the moment are the rugby world cup and the container ship “Rena” that crashed onto a reef and is spilling fuel and containers onto our pristine beaches.

The cloud

I finally got down to Queen’s Wharf today. This is the main “fan zone” in Auckland for the rugby world cup. There is a huge bar with loads of big TV screens, so large numbers of people can drink beer and watch rugby. I was there at 11:00. The place reeked of stale beer. Uuurgh!

There is also a large inflatable rugby ball that, I’m told, contains an audiovisual presentation (there was a 90 minute wait to get in, so I didn’t go). There is a stage, where a band was sound-checking.

The only really striking thing is The Cloud, which is an elegant building formed with a curved steel frame and a stretched canvas exterior. I assume the name intended to invoke the Maori name for New Zealand: Aotearoa, which means “land of the long white cloud”. Anyway, the structure is elegant, but there isn’t much of interest inside.

There is a cool timelapse movie of the building being constructed.

Apart from that just admired the cruise ship that was in, and the luxury yacht Family Day.

Maori TV

The rugby world cup is well underway, and I have been watching a few games on TV. To see all the games live you need to have Sky, but you can watch some of the games (sometimes live, but mostly on a delayed broadcast) on the Maori TV channel. The commentary is mostly in English, but there are various bits when they start talking Maori, especially in the warm-up before the game. I am quite enjoying hearing a bit of Maori on the TV. I can’t understand a word, but it sounds nice.

I had trouble with my aerial. Turns out the digital signal is polarised, and I had the aerial at 90 degrees to the correct plane. Now fixed. Simple physics.

Of course, this reminds of the old Maori aerial joke. Back in the 1970s one would occasionally see a beat-up old car with a broken radio aerial replaced by a bent coat-hanger. This lead to the phrase “Maori aerial”, popularised by the great NZ Maori comedian Billy T James (his act was to play-along with racial stereotypes about Maori people, but was loved by all. No, really). Here’s a typical clip of his show.

Saturday was one of the “Ponsonby Rd Market Days”. Ponsonby Rd is the main street right by our house. It has lots of cafes, restaurants, fashion stores, etc. A few times a year they have a big festival with roadside stalls and lots of bands playing. It was a great atmosphere. Lots of latin-influenced jazz bands. Including one with about the best drummer I think I have ever seen. Nice to just stroll along the street and people-watch. Plus plenty of balloons and face-paint for kids.

Not sure how much more I’ll do with this blog. I think it might be time to wrap it up.

Fireworks

Yesterday was the opening ceremony for the Rugby World Cup. Eve’s school finished early (so that people could get home — the city council was worried that the roads would be too crowded) so we went down to the harbour front for the main party. But it was way too crowded so we came home again and watched everything on TV.

The climax was an excellent fireworks display. We could see most of it from the road outside our house.

There is a real festival spirit in town and lots of groups of fans from all over the world. Have seen French, English and Scottish groups, plus large groups of Tongans and Samoans (many of whom live in NZ, or have family who live here).