Oh, I forgot to mention the They Might Be Giants gig I went to on Saturday night. It was a night of extremes, as you shall see...
Saturday 8th December. Melbourne, Australia.
13:00 - DexX and Bec go off to do some Christmas shopping at a local shopping centre.
17:00 - DexX and Bec grab a thickshake and a smoothie, respectively, and head home.
17:30 - After a brief rest and chat (and wrapping their housemate's present) DexX and Bec head off into the city.
16:00 - DexX and Bec meet their housemate, Ogo, in the city, and go off for a nice meal. Ogo has been playing cricket all day on the fielding team, consisting primarily of standing about in a grassy field for five hours.
19:30 - DexX, Bec, and Ogo join the short queue outside the venue where TMBG are playing. The show time marked on the tickets is "8:30pm".
20:45 - We are finally let into the venue, a dark, smoky, underground pit. They are unhappy to see that this venue has no seating whatsoever, and resign themselves to sitting on a step. Music is playing when they arrive - awful covers of songs that had once been very good, played at brain-haemmorhage-inducing volume.
21:30 - Still no TMBG, and no support act. We, like the fans all around us, are getting bored and annoyed. About this time, a gorilla in black clothes, almost certainly incapable of identifying the number pinned to his chest, tells us rudely to stand up.
21:45 - The support act starts performing. They suck. In fact, they suck a lot. Approximately one thousand TMBG fans completely fail to make the band feel welcome, especially after the lead singer begins the act by announcing that TMBG would not be performing that night. He was joking, but we had no way of knowing - he said it without a smile and the support act started their show. This guy did not have a great ability to read the mood of a crowd, obviously.
23:00 - After an unbearably long bracket, the support act (who performed such classics as "Fuck!" and "I Like Tits" - I really wish I was joking) went off, seemingly pleased with the applause they got from ten per cent of the audience. The ear-drum rupturing shitty covers CD resumes.
23:40 - After over four hours of standign in a queue and standing in the venue, the fans finally get what they want - TMBG comes on the stage. DexX was heard saying to Ogo, "This is going to have to be a fucking good show to make up for all this bullshit."
01:20 - (Sunday morning) It was a fucking good show. DexX, Bec, and Ogo begin the slow process of exiting an underground firetrap...
It is a credit to They Might Be Giants that they made me feel like our very expensive tickets had been worth the price, after considering the seatless venue, the rude bouncers, the idiotic waiting, and the support act which managed to be both inappropriate and terrible. Just my luck - the last few times they have played in Melbourne I have missed them, but they always played in proper theatres, with permanent seating. *growl*
We found out later that part of the delay was due to one of the two support acts not turning up for some reason. After hearing the one that did turn up, I am not convinced that this is a bad thing.
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