Chromeo in Australia, Feb. 10-24, 2009
Day 1, 2 - to Sydney, NSW (Feb 10/11)
And so the epic journey begins... I was a little behind today and I had to pack quickly before my car service came and picked me up. After triple checking everything I figured I was alright (at least I knew I had my passport), I headed downstairs, hopped in the car and headed to JFK. My driver was particularly happy to hear I was going to Australia; he has a son that lives there and he insisted that I call him. For what, I'm not too sure, but I took the number anyways and we'll see...
I met up with the rest of the guys at the airport. It's kind of funny in a way... Most friends meet up at a bar or a house or something. We meet at airport bars. And we enjoy what the bar has to offer. I'm really skeptical about airplane food, so I always try to eat before I get on a long flight. I also pound a couple airport-sized pints to dull the pain and hopefully fall asleep before we even hit the runway. While we were doing all this I also tried calling my bank because I realized earlier today that I lost my client card. Not a good thing when going halfway around the world.
Anyways. The flight was actually ok. The first leg got us to San Francisco where we had to switch planes. Not a bad thing, gave us a chance to get a bit of real food before boarding again. The rest of the way to Sydney really wasn't that bad. I slept through most of it. By the time we got on the 2nd plane, it was something like 3am for my body so I was getting a little tired anyways. Thankfully there were no babies on this flight. Turns out the flight down under is alright.
Somewhere before landing, Feb. 11 disappeared into a kind of cosmic vortex. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices to get out of winter a little early...
Day 3, Sydney
We arrived in Sydney a little after 9am local time. The goal today is to make it past 10pm to try and beat the jet lag as best we can. Never having been this far away, who knows what'll happen...
We were met at the airport by our Australian TM who deftly guided us to our waiting vehicle to bring us to the hotel. Love the waiting vehicle concept. And it got us to the very nice Sheraton-on-the-Park rather painlessly. So far so good. Taking things a step further, all our rooms were ready! Unreal, this is unheard of for a check-in this early. And the rooms are really nice. This could be a good week.
More important matters are at hand though - jet lag must be defeated. It is our enemy and as such must be put to death as quickly as possible. Fortunately our North American TM (yes, I know, we have 2 TM's) has been here a couple times and he knew just what to do. We started out with a walk through the Harbour, by the Opera House and up to the Gumnut Cafe where we sat in a beautiful courtyard area for lunch. Once we were done, the waiter recommended we head over to a rooftop bar beside the Harbour Bridge, which we did, of course. Stayed there for a couple, then when walking around we found the oldest pub in Sydney, so naturally we had to stop in. It was also educational. We learned all about recommended alcohol intake from the signs on the wall. (Ed.- I had pics but lost them all in a hard drive crash...).
After leaving the oldest pub in Sydney (can't remember the name at this point), we found a lovely German beer garden. This has become a very successful day. Suitably primed to combat our enemy, we figured it was time for a walk, so we spent some time going through the Royal Botanic Gardens, which were right by the hotel. On the other side, get this, we found a pub. Awesome. By this point, we've done a pretty good job getting through the day. It's just about dinner time, but this place doesn't serve food. But there's a chip stand right across the street. Killer. Gotta love the street meat. After that quick bite, we went back in to the Gardens to check out the bats.
Yes, bats. And they're huge. Every day at dusk, the fruit bats fly out of the trees in search of food. I couldn't believe how big they were. Literally like cats with wings. It was amazing. There must have been a couple hundred, maybe more. Never seen anything like it.
At this point there wasn't much energy left to see or do much more. We slowly started making our way back to the hotel, exhausted and completely satisfied. We stayed up as late as we could. We did everything possible to kill the jet lag. We should now be able to sleep til a reasonable hour, get up, have breakfast, have a normal-ish day with some minor fatigue. Love it.
Day 4, Sydney
Oh my God I am in pain. So much for jet lag theories. I have never been hit by anything like this. I woke up at 5:30am, which is technically 1:30pm yesterday for me, so it's not that weird I guess. But the clock says 5:30am and I don't like it. I'm not in. Not gonna beat this one, that's for sure...
So we go for breakfast downstairs. The beauty of this festival is that they're paying for our breakfast at the hotel every day. Amazing. We took our time, trying to get our bearings. It was also quite possibly the largest breakfast I've ever eaten. In terms of biological clocks, it was pretty much dinner time for me, so I guess it's not weird that I had a big meal, just that it was breakfast foods. Bizarre... This place has quite the effect on you...
So, coming to terms with the reality of the situation, we head out and randomly walk around neighbourhoods. It went fairly well. Found some coffee places, a few cool shops, ventured where no outsider has gone before, I'm sure... The highlight was early afternoon, we found a small Italian place where we decided to stop for a glass of wine. They didn't do it by the glass, so we got a bottle. Then we found out that you actually have to buy food in order to be served alcohol, by law. So we get a small appetizer platter to split. All good. Sit around with the Italians, drink some wine, have some carpaccio. I'm in. As it gets a little later into the afternoon, the lunch time crowd leaves and eventually there's just the 2 of us sitting in the restaurant. Then they lock the doors. With us inside. Ok, not that weird, they just don't want anyone else coming in. Cool. Then they start setting tables, which we figure is for the dinner crowd. Then the entire restaurant staff sits down and starts eating their lunch, completely oblivious to the fact we're still sitting there. We didn't really know what to do. This is a little funny. Kind of hilarious actually. After we're done our food, wine and the jug of water on the table, we can't take it anymore so we decide to leave a pile of cash on the table and just walk out. As soon as we stood up, they came rushing over to give us the bill, etc... slightly awkward moment; we felt bad for disturbing lunch, they felt bad for making us wait. So they offered us another bottle of wine. We politely declined and bolted out the door, straight back to the hotel. It's not even 4pm and our day has been slammed.
We only had a couple hours to chill out though. There's an artist reception tonight at a place called Ivy, which is a bar complex owned by the guy who puts on the festival. So we head over for the free drinks and food. It was a little weird. It didn't really seem like anyone wanted to be there, but the free drinks helped with that. Met a few people, stared at others, walked around the complex, etc... This particular party was being hosted in the ridiculous penthouse suite. It has 4 showers, a full bar, and an elevator. Need I say more? It started getting weird later on when it was obvious certain "talent" was being paid to be there to provide certain "services", so we rounded up, confirmed our suspicions amongst ourselves, laughed about it and bailed.
We managed to stay up til midnight, which is awesome. Hopefully that will translate into sleep.
Day 5, Sydney
We have to leave the hotel at 11am to go to the show today (1 of 4 shows over 2 weeks!!), and usually that means I get up at 10, run through the shower and grab a coffee in the lobby on my way out the door. Again, that's what I usually do. I was up at 5:30am again. This is not good. I have a full day ahead of me before I even have to think about going to a show. So down to the restaurant I go for another massive breakfast. I eat, and have time to go out and check out the coffee place I found online, Mecca Espresso Bar. It's pretty solid. I like.
Back at the hotel in time for 11am to go to the gig. Crazy. It was a little early to head in today, but we had to given that it was the first day and we had to check that all the gear was ok, etc... Extra time is not a bad thing. It was all good, which was nice, so we were sort of ready for the show. It's been about 5 months since we've done a show though, so the changeover was a little rough, but everything got up and running and it ended up being ok. Crazy crowd, especially in the rain. They loved it. Not bad at all...
So the bonus is that our set was at 4:10pm, so we were back at the hotel by 6pm. Amazing. A whole day before and after the show. This is alright. Given that we had time, we decided we'd try and figure out the subway system and head out to Newtown, which is supposed to be a sort of happening neighbourhood, and it's Saturday night, so why not?
Well, I'll tell you why not. The subway system is absolutely pathetic. Brutal. The trains only come every 30 mins. That's really hard to deal with after living in New York. We were really tired after waiting and almost gave up, but we stuck it out and made it to Newtown eventually. We got off the train and asked a local for directions to the place we wanted to eat at, and of course the guy didn't have a clue. It's not hard, do we go right or left? In which direction do the numbers go? Apparently this is hard. Whatever. We figure it out on our own after a minute or two, and walk down to the address only to find out that the place just shut down. Permanently. That was a little deflating, but there was a good looking Thai place across the street, and it was pretty full, which is a good sign, so we headed in. And it was amazing. Really cheap too, overall a great find. Talked with the owner for a bit afterwards. He wasn't Thai, but he was a good guy so we let it slide...
We decided not to fight with the subway on the way back to the hotel and just hopped in to a cab. Got back around 11pm, which isn't bad, except that we have to get up early to fly to Melbourne in the morning for a show tomorrow afternoon. At least I probably don't have to worry about being up on time...
Day 6, Melbourne
So today was an early one, but we were awake and had time for breakfast. We headed to the airport for an early flight to Melbourne to play an afternoon show and then fly back. I suppose overall it was pretty painless. Once we landed, we were driven straight to the show. We were so early that the backstage area wasn't even set up yet. That was odd. Catering wasn't open either so we waited a while to get lunch. Ended up starting to set up a little bit, taking our time, nice and easy. And before we knew it, we were starting the show. Today was a lot smoother and better than yesterday, it went really well and as soon as it was done we were on a shuttle back to the airport.
This is possibly the first time I've done a round trip for a show in a single day (by plane), but I'm not complaining. It's good way to get there and back, and we had a good hotel in Sydney, so why mess with it? The actual reason we're going back though it that the guys have a DJ set at the Ivy Bar tonight at which we all ended up hanging out. It was pretty wild. The guys got picked up by a Bentley at the hotel. The rest of us got in a cab and I finally got to tell a cabbie to "Follow that car!". After going through back doors and down back hallways, we got in to the main party area and I observed all the classics: dancing on tables, flashing credit cards, waving bottles around, people pouring vodka on other people, VIP areas, lax security etc... It made for a pretty entertaining evening... We left before it got crazy.
Day 7, Sydney
Today is a full day off, weather is beautiful, there's a city to explore. The first thing we did after breakfast was get out of the city. We went down to the Quay and hopped on a ferry to Watson's Bay, an area right at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. The ride itself was amazing. Incredible views, spectacular scenery, amazing. When we got to Watson's, we went across a small beach with a view of the skyline (ie. paradise) and then through an almost tropical forest with flora and fauna I've never seen. On the way back we cut through what seemed to be a colonial-era neighbourhood with beautiful houses made from all kinds of different materials, really unique designs. (I lost all the pics in a hard drive crash... sigh). We then walked up a hill and along the edge of the cliffs and saw the South Pacific on the other side of the bay. Amazing. Stopped by an old church on the way down and stopped for lunch in a pub by the wharf. As soon as we sat down it started pouring rain outside, so we stayed for a while, had a couple extra drinks...
Back in the city, it was band dinner night so we all met up in the evening and went on a search for a restaurant. That proved to be a little challenging on a Monday, and we ended up in a tourist trap in Darling Harbour. The good side of this, however, was that they had kangaroo on the menu. So I ordered it. And it was great. Kind of like venison. After dinner we were all pretty wiped because we haven't fully adjusted to the time zones, so we just headed back to the hotel and crashed.
Day 8, Sydney
Another full day off... There was supposed to be a harbour cruise for everyone that's part of the festival, but the weather was so bad that it got canceled. So our whole group got together and went to a wildlife park and aquarium in Darling Harbour. It was pretty wild... Crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, creatures I couldn't name if my life depended on it, snakes, spiders, etc... Really crazy stuff. And the shark tank. Nothing like having a huge shark swim by 2 feet above your head, seeing the teeth... Nuts.
To make up for the canceled cruise, we were all invited to a place called Sushi Choo for dinner. Basic premise is that the chefs just make generic servings and it comes around on a conveyor belt and you take what you want. There's an excellent video of the experience here, courtesy of Mike Relm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Rpeg--H5o
After dinner, we went to another bar in the building for some free drinks (all this is in the same complex as Ivy), hung out for a bit and then ended up at a Salsa dancing place called The Esplanade. I did not dance. I stayed close to the bar - the place was so packed that if you dared to walk away, you'd never get back for another drink. Priorities after all... After an hour or so of fighting crowds at the bar, we decided to head back to the hotel. We stopped along the way at an all-night convenience/souvenir store to correct spelling mistakes on some of their signs and products and went back to crash.
Day 9, Sydney
Guess what? Day off in Sydney. Best paid vacation ever. Today we took it easy, just hung around Hyde Park for a bit, it's right across the street after all, and walked over to the cathedral across the park. A visit to a foreign city is not complete without a cathedral visit. Took some pics of religious stuff, and then stumbled upon a Thai place for lunch. It was kind of hidden in the yard of the cathedral, thought that was a little weird... Anyways, it was really good. It was sort of like a dim sum; they just kept bringing the food... On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a coffee stand in the park and sat for a while longer (You can stop for coffee anywhere here; the minimum standard is quite high). They have a chess game in the park with human-size pieces, and I have to say it's pretty cool. We had to check it out.The rest of the afternoon was spent doing real work on the computer...
For the evening, I made good on a family promise. My brother-in-law is originally from Sydney, and his folks own a French restaurant up near Manly. So, a couple of us hopped on the ferry and made our way out. Another spectacular ferry ride. Love the harbour. We got to Manly and had a little time to spare, so we walked down to the beach, watched the surfers for a while and slowly made our way up the hill.
The restaurant was packed when we got there, but we squeezed in, only after I got reprimanded for not bringing my niece. We spent the rest of the night there, long after everyone else had left, had an amazing meal, lots of wine, cheese, chocolate, etc... Fantastic. We caught the last ferry back to the city and called it a night. There were penguins at the ferry dock in Manly by the way... Kind of cool...
Day 10, Sydney
So today I have to find a way to deal with another day off in Sydney. How am I ever going to go back to real life after this? It's too good. After another hotel breakfast, we went out and walked around our immediate neighbourhood for a while. Still hadn't done this, so it was about time. Being in the CBD (Central Business District), finding something cool can be a little hard. We didn't win, but we didn't lose either. We found what claims to be the first jail in Sydney. It dates back to 18??. Not quite as old as Europe, but whatever. The exhibit had a typewriter, so that gives you an idea of its age... Our morning pretty much consisted of things like that.
The afternoon consisted of the Harbour Cruise. It's really awesome that they were able to reschedule this. We headed over to the Opera House where a small yacht was waiting for us. All aboard, down to the bar, life is good. What an amazing way to spend an afternoon. Weather was perfect too. Highlights include watching a float plane take off from the water right beside us.
Once we got back to shore, we relaxed at the hotel for a bit before, get this, going to the Ivy bar. Tonight the goal was to check out the Cuban Brothers, another act of the festival, who were doing a short set at the bar tonight. To say they're highly entertaining is an understatement. You have to see them if they come near you. After they were done, we hung around til our complementary tab was closed. Our Aussie TM was able to sneak a bottle of vodka away, so bonus points for that, but we didn't stay around there to drink it.
Well, not too long anyways. We went back to the hotel, emptied the mini-bars and a small group of us headed in to the park at 3am. There's a cool little fountain area at the south end where we camped out for a couple hours and had a great time. One of the guys tried to run through the fountain and fell flat on his face, in the process sacrificing his Blackberry for our entertainment. One guy fell asleep on the steps and was summarily covered in Sharpie tattoos. Can't wait to hear about the reaction in the morning... Ah, memories...
Day 11, Sydney
And another day off in Sydney is upon us. It's the last one though, tomorrow we actually have a show.
We spent our last afternoon relaxing on the beach in Bondi, which is known around the world not only for its surfing, but also for its shark attacks. Fortunately we did not experience the latter. That happened the week before... We just hung out on the beach, worked on our tans, spent some time in the ocean, spent some time searching for a lost necklace in the ocean that was ripped off by a wave, and generally had a good time. There was also a BBQ pit that we took over for lunch. It's a pretty good set up out there.
After we got back from the beach, we freshened up and prepared to head out for the evening. We all headed out for a final group dinner at a restaurant called Nepalese Kitchen, which was great. We sat on a patio out back, which had a wall that was controlled by massive cockroaches. A couple people in our party were a little worried about that, but our local friends were just casually batting them out of the way. You don't really do that where we come from - it's more of a run and hide reaction... I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but then none of the roaches flew on to my plate...
Once that was all taken care of, we shockingly returned to the Ivy bar one last time for one last open bar. Just more of the same really. We hung out for a while, laughed at the whole situation (none of us would normally be caught dead in a place like this), and eventually headed back to crash. Tomorrow starts with an early flight and has lots of driving... Can't wait.
Day 12, Brisbane / Gold Coast
Back to work. What a weird feeling. It's really hard to walk away from the amazing "vacation" we just had in Sydney over the last week, but alas, it had to happen at some point... And reality hit with the early flight combined with a bad hotel check-in followed by a 2 hr drive to the festival site in Gold Coast. Good times.
The show itself went by quickly and all went well. Then we had another drive back in to Brisbane for the night. I slept through most of that one... Once we got in to town, we had the rest of the night off with nothing to do, but there was another festival in town that night, Soundwaves, and our TM happened to know some people, so we grabbed a couple passes for that. A short cab ride later we were watching Nine Inch Nails, and oddly enough, running in to people we both knew - in Brisbane?! Wild! We stuck around for a little while after the show before grabbing a shuttle back to our hotel. Didn't push things too much... We're about to start a 50 some odd hour day...
Day 13/14, Perth to NYC - halfway around the world.
Today will literally be the uncontested longest day of my life. The after-show travel time alone is 34hrs. So, just cause, we got up at 5am so we could fly from Brisbane to Perth. That was the short flight of the day, only about 5hrs. No big deal... Just going to fly across Australia twice today...
Once we got to Perth, they took us straight to the hotel to check in to rooms we won't even sleep in. That's not a bad thing, it's not the nicest Sheraton I've ever seen... Anyways. I digress. We then get shuttled to the festival site where, once again, we show up painfully early. We killed time by playing ping pong and staring at a security guard who moonlights as an Elvis impersonator. I can't make that up. It was incredible.
Eventually the show happens, all is good in the world. Afterwards, for the first time, we had time to hang around backstage and actually hang out with some of the other bands. The quality of ping pong competition was surprisingly high. Who knew?
There was also an after-party planned for tonight, as it's the last night of the festival and everyone goes their separate ways tomorrow. This is a contributing factor to the longest day ever. You see, when we go our separate ways, we do so at 3:30am. Our flight info was posted on our dressing room door as a subtle reminder to be responsible, and everyone that saw it had a good laugh at our expense. So, that being said, no point going to sleep. That's what the flights are for. So we head to the after-party around 11pm, hang out, have a couple last drinks with people, a couple goodbye moments and at 3:20am I hopped in a cab (which our Aussie TM helped commandeer from someone else) to rush to the hotel and pack. Not the best plan, but it worked out somehow...
I had no time to spare at the hotel, and got a couple more quick goodbyes taken care of on my way down to the airport shuttle. And so begins the travel... We got to the airport and boarded flight #1 to Sydney. I slept the whole flight on the worst airline *ever*, Virgin Blue (not the same as Virgin Atlantic, or the British one...). The seats didn't recline and the flight attendants were the worst in history. I'm really happy I slept. When we landed in Sydney, we had about 2hrs, so we sat down for a quick bite and surprisingly didn't feel all that bad given the lack of sleep, but I was far from good.... Flight #2 was on to LA, and to the envy of all those I travel with, I slept the entire flight. Literally. 14hrs. When I got off that plane I felt great. And then we had to catch the 3rd plane to NYC.
We got off our LA flight and because we were entering the US, we had to claim our bags, clear customs and go through security again - in another terminal. So we run off the flight, wait forever in line at customs, get through and go to get our bags. It took forever. After waiting what felt like an hour, but was maybe 30mins, our bags finally showed up right when we were about to give up hope. We grabbed them and ran. Thankfully the next flight was only one terminal away, but we still had to go through security and there were probably 200 people in line. No good. So we beg security to let us through, which they actually did, and then we noticed we were missing a guy. Man down. Unfortunately for him, we're not the US Marines, we left our man behind. We cleared security and sprinted to the gate which was closing when we ran up. We tried to get them to hold the plane for our missing man, but no love from United. The plane was pushing back from the gate before we even sat down. (Turns out our man was detained as part of random screening and actually got a better flight home from the whole ordeal...)
Eventually we land in NYC and I hop in a cab and go the final leg back to the apartment. What a day. We figured out that Feb. 23rd lasted 46 hrs for us, plus the 19hrs we were awake on the 22nd. 65hr day people. That's insane. Good thing I'm flying back to Perth in 10 days...
And so the epic journey begins... I was a little behind today and I had to pack quickly before my car service came and picked me up. After triple checking everything I figured I was alright (at least I knew I had my passport), I headed downstairs, hopped in the car and headed to JFK. My driver was particularly happy to hear I was going to Australia; he has a son that lives there and he insisted that I call him. For what, I'm not too sure, but I took the number anyways and we'll see...
I met up with the rest of the guys at the airport. It's kind of funny in a way... Most friends meet up at a bar or a house or something. We meet at airport bars. And we enjoy what the bar has to offer. I'm really skeptical about airplane food, so I always try to eat before I get on a long flight. I also pound a couple airport-sized pints to dull the pain and hopefully fall asleep before we even hit the runway. While we were doing all this I also tried calling my bank because I realized earlier today that I lost my client card. Not a good thing when going halfway around the world.
Anyways. The flight was actually ok. The first leg got us to San Francisco where we had to switch planes. Not a bad thing, gave us a chance to get a bit of real food before boarding again. The rest of the way to Sydney really wasn't that bad. I slept through most of it. By the time we got on the 2nd plane, it was something like 3am for my body so I was getting a little tired anyways. Thankfully there were no babies on this flight. Turns out the flight down under is alright.
Somewhere before landing, Feb. 11 disappeared into a kind of cosmic vortex. Sometimes you just have to make sacrifices to get out of winter a little early...
Day 3, Sydney
We arrived in Sydney a little after 9am local time. The goal today is to make it past 10pm to try and beat the jet lag as best we can. Never having been this far away, who knows what'll happen...
We were met at the airport by our Australian TM who deftly guided us to our waiting vehicle to bring us to the hotel. Love the waiting vehicle concept. And it got us to the very nice Sheraton-on-the-Park rather painlessly. So far so good. Taking things a step further, all our rooms were ready! Unreal, this is unheard of for a check-in this early. And the rooms are really nice. This could be a good week.
More important matters are at hand though - jet lag must be defeated. It is our enemy and as such must be put to death as quickly as possible. Fortunately our North American TM (yes, I know, we have 2 TM's) has been here a couple times and he knew just what to do. We started out with a walk through the Harbour, by the Opera House and up to the Gumnut Cafe where we sat in a beautiful courtyard area for lunch. Once we were done, the waiter recommended we head over to a rooftop bar beside the Harbour Bridge, which we did, of course. Stayed there for a couple, then when walking around we found the oldest pub in Sydney, so naturally we had to stop in. It was also educational. We learned all about recommended alcohol intake from the signs on the wall. (Ed.- I had pics but lost them all in a hard drive crash...).
After leaving the oldest pub in Sydney (can't remember the name at this point), we found a lovely German beer garden. This has become a very successful day. Suitably primed to combat our enemy, we figured it was time for a walk, so we spent some time going through the Royal Botanic Gardens, which were right by the hotel. On the other side, get this, we found a pub. Awesome. By this point, we've done a pretty good job getting through the day. It's just about dinner time, but this place doesn't serve food. But there's a chip stand right across the street. Killer. Gotta love the street meat. After that quick bite, we went back in to the Gardens to check out the bats.
Yes, bats. And they're huge. Every day at dusk, the fruit bats fly out of the trees in search of food. I couldn't believe how big they were. Literally like cats with wings. It was amazing. There must have been a couple hundred, maybe more. Never seen anything like it.
At this point there wasn't much energy left to see or do much more. We slowly started making our way back to the hotel, exhausted and completely satisfied. We stayed up as late as we could. We did everything possible to kill the jet lag. We should now be able to sleep til a reasonable hour, get up, have breakfast, have a normal-ish day with some minor fatigue. Love it.
Day 4, Sydney
Oh my God I am in pain. So much for jet lag theories. I have never been hit by anything like this. I woke up at 5:30am, which is technically 1:30pm yesterday for me, so it's not that weird I guess. But the clock says 5:30am and I don't like it. I'm not in. Not gonna beat this one, that's for sure...
So we go for breakfast downstairs. The beauty of this festival is that they're paying for our breakfast at the hotel every day. Amazing. We took our time, trying to get our bearings. It was also quite possibly the largest breakfast I've ever eaten. In terms of biological clocks, it was pretty much dinner time for me, so I guess it's not weird that I had a big meal, just that it was breakfast foods. Bizarre... This place has quite the effect on you...
So, coming to terms with the reality of the situation, we head out and randomly walk around neighbourhoods. It went fairly well. Found some coffee places, a few cool shops, ventured where no outsider has gone before, I'm sure... The highlight was early afternoon, we found a small Italian place where we decided to stop for a glass of wine. They didn't do it by the glass, so we got a bottle. Then we found out that you actually have to buy food in order to be served alcohol, by law. So we get a small appetizer platter to split. All good. Sit around with the Italians, drink some wine, have some carpaccio. I'm in. As it gets a little later into the afternoon, the lunch time crowd leaves and eventually there's just the 2 of us sitting in the restaurant. Then they lock the doors. With us inside. Ok, not that weird, they just don't want anyone else coming in. Cool. Then they start setting tables, which we figure is for the dinner crowd. Then the entire restaurant staff sits down and starts eating their lunch, completely oblivious to the fact we're still sitting there. We didn't really know what to do. This is a little funny. Kind of hilarious actually. After we're done our food, wine and the jug of water on the table, we can't take it anymore so we decide to leave a pile of cash on the table and just walk out. As soon as we stood up, they came rushing over to give us the bill, etc... slightly awkward moment; we felt bad for disturbing lunch, they felt bad for making us wait. So they offered us another bottle of wine. We politely declined and bolted out the door, straight back to the hotel. It's not even 4pm and our day has been slammed.
We only had a couple hours to chill out though. There's an artist reception tonight at a place called Ivy, which is a bar complex owned by the guy who puts on the festival. So we head over for the free drinks and food. It was a little weird. It didn't really seem like anyone wanted to be there, but the free drinks helped with that. Met a few people, stared at others, walked around the complex, etc... This particular party was being hosted in the ridiculous penthouse suite. It has 4 showers, a full bar, and an elevator. Need I say more? It started getting weird later on when it was obvious certain "talent" was being paid to be there to provide certain "services", so we rounded up, confirmed our suspicions amongst ourselves, laughed about it and bailed.
We managed to stay up til midnight, which is awesome. Hopefully that will translate into sleep.
Day 5, Sydney
We have to leave the hotel at 11am to go to the show today (1 of 4 shows over 2 weeks!!), and usually that means I get up at 10, run through the shower and grab a coffee in the lobby on my way out the door. Again, that's what I usually do. I was up at 5:30am again. This is not good. I have a full day ahead of me before I even have to think about going to a show. So down to the restaurant I go for another massive breakfast. I eat, and have time to go out and check out the coffee place I found online, Mecca Espresso Bar. It's pretty solid. I like.
Back at the hotel in time for 11am to go to the gig. Crazy. It was a little early to head in today, but we had to given that it was the first day and we had to check that all the gear was ok, etc... Extra time is not a bad thing. It was all good, which was nice, so we were sort of ready for the show. It's been about 5 months since we've done a show though, so the changeover was a little rough, but everything got up and running and it ended up being ok. Crazy crowd, especially in the rain. They loved it. Not bad at all...
So the bonus is that our set was at 4:10pm, so we were back at the hotel by 6pm. Amazing. A whole day before and after the show. This is alright. Given that we had time, we decided we'd try and figure out the subway system and head out to Newtown, which is supposed to be a sort of happening neighbourhood, and it's Saturday night, so why not?
Well, I'll tell you why not. The subway system is absolutely pathetic. Brutal. The trains only come every 30 mins. That's really hard to deal with after living in New York. We were really tired after waiting and almost gave up, but we stuck it out and made it to Newtown eventually. We got off the train and asked a local for directions to the place we wanted to eat at, and of course the guy didn't have a clue. It's not hard, do we go right or left? In which direction do the numbers go? Apparently this is hard. Whatever. We figure it out on our own after a minute or two, and walk down to the address only to find out that the place just shut down. Permanently. That was a little deflating, but there was a good looking Thai place across the street, and it was pretty full, which is a good sign, so we headed in. And it was amazing. Really cheap too, overall a great find. Talked with the owner for a bit afterwards. He wasn't Thai, but he was a good guy so we let it slide...
We decided not to fight with the subway on the way back to the hotel and just hopped in to a cab. Got back around 11pm, which isn't bad, except that we have to get up early to fly to Melbourne in the morning for a show tomorrow afternoon. At least I probably don't have to worry about being up on time...
Day 6, Melbourne
So today was an early one, but we were awake and had time for breakfast. We headed to the airport for an early flight to Melbourne to play an afternoon show and then fly back. I suppose overall it was pretty painless. Once we landed, we were driven straight to the show. We were so early that the backstage area wasn't even set up yet. That was odd. Catering wasn't open either so we waited a while to get lunch. Ended up starting to set up a little bit, taking our time, nice and easy. And before we knew it, we were starting the show. Today was a lot smoother and better than yesterday, it went really well and as soon as it was done we were on a shuttle back to the airport.
This is possibly the first time I've done a round trip for a show in a single day (by plane), but I'm not complaining. It's good way to get there and back, and we had a good hotel in Sydney, so why mess with it? The actual reason we're going back though it that the guys have a DJ set at the Ivy Bar tonight at which we all ended up hanging out. It was pretty wild. The guys got picked up by a Bentley at the hotel. The rest of us got in a cab and I finally got to tell a cabbie to "Follow that car!". After going through back doors and down back hallways, we got in to the main party area and I observed all the classics: dancing on tables, flashing credit cards, waving bottles around, people pouring vodka on other people, VIP areas, lax security etc... It made for a pretty entertaining evening... We left before it got crazy.
Day 7, Sydney
Today is a full day off, weather is beautiful, there's a city to explore. The first thing we did after breakfast was get out of the city. We went down to the Quay and hopped on a ferry to Watson's Bay, an area right at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. The ride itself was amazing. Incredible views, spectacular scenery, amazing. When we got to Watson's, we went across a small beach with a view of the skyline (ie. paradise) and then through an almost tropical forest with flora and fauna I've never seen. On the way back we cut through what seemed to be a colonial-era neighbourhood with beautiful houses made from all kinds of different materials, really unique designs. (I lost all the pics in a hard drive crash... sigh). We then walked up a hill and along the edge of the cliffs and saw the South Pacific on the other side of the bay. Amazing. Stopped by an old church on the way down and stopped for lunch in a pub by the wharf. As soon as we sat down it started pouring rain outside, so we stayed for a while, had a couple extra drinks...
Back in the city, it was band dinner night so we all met up in the evening and went on a search for a restaurant. That proved to be a little challenging on a Monday, and we ended up in a tourist trap in Darling Harbour. The good side of this, however, was that they had kangaroo on the menu. So I ordered it. And it was great. Kind of like venison. After dinner we were all pretty wiped because we haven't fully adjusted to the time zones, so we just headed back to the hotel and crashed.
Day 8, Sydney
Another full day off... There was supposed to be a harbour cruise for everyone that's part of the festival, but the weather was so bad that it got canceled. So our whole group got together and went to a wildlife park and aquarium in Darling Harbour. It was pretty wild... Crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, creatures I couldn't name if my life depended on it, snakes, spiders, etc... Really crazy stuff. And the shark tank. Nothing like having a huge shark swim by 2 feet above your head, seeing the teeth... Nuts.
To make up for the canceled cruise, we were all invited to a place called Sushi Choo for dinner. Basic premise is that the chefs just make generic servings and it comes around on a conveyor belt and you take what you want. There's an excellent video of the experience here, courtesy of Mike Relm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Rpeg--H5o
After dinner, we went to another bar in the building for some free drinks (all this is in the same complex as Ivy), hung out for a bit and then ended up at a Salsa dancing place called The Esplanade. I did not dance. I stayed close to the bar - the place was so packed that if you dared to walk away, you'd never get back for another drink. Priorities after all... After an hour or so of fighting crowds at the bar, we decided to head back to the hotel. We stopped along the way at an all-night convenience/souvenir store to correct spelling mistakes on some of their signs and products and went back to crash.
Day 9, Sydney
Guess what? Day off in Sydney. Best paid vacation ever. Today we took it easy, just hung around Hyde Park for a bit, it's right across the street after all, and walked over to the cathedral across the park. A visit to a foreign city is not complete without a cathedral visit. Took some pics of religious stuff, and then stumbled upon a Thai place for lunch. It was kind of hidden in the yard of the cathedral, thought that was a little weird... Anyways, it was really good. It was sort of like a dim sum; they just kept bringing the food... On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a coffee stand in the park and sat for a while longer (You can stop for coffee anywhere here; the minimum standard is quite high). They have a chess game in the park with human-size pieces, and I have to say it's pretty cool. We had to check it out.The rest of the afternoon was spent doing real work on the computer...
For the evening, I made good on a family promise. My brother-in-law is originally from Sydney, and his folks own a French restaurant up near Manly. So, a couple of us hopped on the ferry and made our way out. Another spectacular ferry ride. Love the harbour. We got to Manly and had a little time to spare, so we walked down to the beach, watched the surfers for a while and slowly made our way up the hill.
The restaurant was packed when we got there, but we squeezed in, only after I got reprimanded for not bringing my niece. We spent the rest of the night there, long after everyone else had left, had an amazing meal, lots of wine, cheese, chocolate, etc... Fantastic. We caught the last ferry back to the city and called it a night. There were penguins at the ferry dock in Manly by the way... Kind of cool...
Day 10, Sydney
So today I have to find a way to deal with another day off in Sydney. How am I ever going to go back to real life after this? It's too good. After another hotel breakfast, we went out and walked around our immediate neighbourhood for a while. Still hadn't done this, so it was about time. Being in the CBD (Central Business District), finding something cool can be a little hard. We didn't win, but we didn't lose either. We found what claims to be the first jail in Sydney. It dates back to 18??. Not quite as old as Europe, but whatever. The exhibit had a typewriter, so that gives you an idea of its age... Our morning pretty much consisted of things like that.
The afternoon consisted of the Harbour Cruise. It's really awesome that they were able to reschedule this. We headed over to the Opera House where a small yacht was waiting for us. All aboard, down to the bar, life is good. What an amazing way to spend an afternoon. Weather was perfect too. Highlights include watching a float plane take off from the water right beside us.
Once we got back to shore, we relaxed at the hotel for a bit before, get this, going to the Ivy bar. Tonight the goal was to check out the Cuban Brothers, another act of the festival, who were doing a short set at the bar tonight. To say they're highly entertaining is an understatement. You have to see them if they come near you. After they were done, we hung around til our complementary tab was closed. Our Aussie TM was able to sneak a bottle of vodka away, so bonus points for that, but we didn't stay around there to drink it.
Well, not too long anyways. We went back to the hotel, emptied the mini-bars and a small group of us headed in to the park at 3am. There's a cool little fountain area at the south end where we camped out for a couple hours and had a great time. One of the guys tried to run through the fountain and fell flat on his face, in the process sacrificing his Blackberry for our entertainment. One guy fell asleep on the steps and was summarily covered in Sharpie tattoos. Can't wait to hear about the reaction in the morning... Ah, memories...
Day 11, Sydney
And another day off in Sydney is upon us. It's the last one though, tomorrow we actually have a show.
We spent our last afternoon relaxing on the beach in Bondi, which is known around the world not only for its surfing, but also for its shark attacks. Fortunately we did not experience the latter. That happened the week before... We just hung out on the beach, worked on our tans, spent some time in the ocean, spent some time searching for a lost necklace in the ocean that was ripped off by a wave, and generally had a good time. There was also a BBQ pit that we took over for lunch. It's a pretty good set up out there.
After we got back from the beach, we freshened up and prepared to head out for the evening. We all headed out for a final group dinner at a restaurant called Nepalese Kitchen, which was great. We sat on a patio out back, which had a wall that was controlled by massive cockroaches. A couple people in our party were a little worried about that, but our local friends were just casually batting them out of the way. You don't really do that where we come from - it's more of a run and hide reaction... I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but then none of the roaches flew on to my plate...
Once that was all taken care of, we shockingly returned to the Ivy bar one last time for one last open bar. Just more of the same really. We hung out for a while, laughed at the whole situation (none of us would normally be caught dead in a place like this), and eventually headed back to crash. Tomorrow starts with an early flight and has lots of driving... Can't wait.
Day 12, Brisbane / Gold Coast
Back to work. What a weird feeling. It's really hard to walk away from the amazing "vacation" we just had in Sydney over the last week, but alas, it had to happen at some point... And reality hit with the early flight combined with a bad hotel check-in followed by a 2 hr drive to the festival site in Gold Coast. Good times.
The show itself went by quickly and all went well. Then we had another drive back in to Brisbane for the night. I slept through most of that one... Once we got in to town, we had the rest of the night off with nothing to do, but there was another festival in town that night, Soundwaves, and our TM happened to know some people, so we grabbed a couple passes for that. A short cab ride later we were watching Nine Inch Nails, and oddly enough, running in to people we both knew - in Brisbane?! Wild! We stuck around for a little while after the show before grabbing a shuttle back to our hotel. Didn't push things too much... We're about to start a 50 some odd hour day...
Day 13/14, Perth to NYC - halfway around the world.
Today will literally be the uncontested longest day of my life. The after-show travel time alone is 34hrs. So, just cause, we got up at 5am so we could fly from Brisbane to Perth. That was the short flight of the day, only about 5hrs. No big deal... Just going to fly across Australia twice today...
Once we got to Perth, they took us straight to the hotel to check in to rooms we won't even sleep in. That's not a bad thing, it's not the nicest Sheraton I've ever seen... Anyways. I digress. We then get shuttled to the festival site where, once again, we show up painfully early. We killed time by playing ping pong and staring at a security guard who moonlights as an Elvis impersonator. I can't make that up. It was incredible.
Eventually the show happens, all is good in the world. Afterwards, for the first time, we had time to hang around backstage and actually hang out with some of the other bands. The quality of ping pong competition was surprisingly high. Who knew?
There was also an after-party planned for tonight, as it's the last night of the festival and everyone goes their separate ways tomorrow. This is a contributing factor to the longest day ever. You see, when we go our separate ways, we do so at 3:30am. Our flight info was posted on our dressing room door as a subtle reminder to be responsible, and everyone that saw it had a good laugh at our expense. So, that being said, no point going to sleep. That's what the flights are for. So we head to the after-party around 11pm, hang out, have a couple last drinks with people, a couple goodbye moments and at 3:20am I hopped in a cab (which our Aussie TM helped commandeer from someone else) to rush to the hotel and pack. Not the best plan, but it worked out somehow...
I had no time to spare at the hotel, and got a couple more quick goodbyes taken care of on my way down to the airport shuttle. And so begins the travel... We got to the airport and boarded flight #1 to Sydney. I slept the whole flight on the worst airline *ever*, Virgin Blue (not the same as Virgin Atlantic, or the British one...). The seats didn't recline and the flight attendants were the worst in history. I'm really happy I slept. When we landed in Sydney, we had about 2hrs, so we sat down for a quick bite and surprisingly didn't feel all that bad given the lack of sleep, but I was far from good.... Flight #2 was on to LA, and to the envy of all those I travel with, I slept the entire flight. Literally. 14hrs. When I got off that plane I felt great. And then we had to catch the 3rd plane to NYC.
We got off our LA flight and because we were entering the US, we had to claim our bags, clear customs and go through security again - in another terminal. So we run off the flight, wait forever in line at customs, get through and go to get our bags. It took forever. After waiting what felt like an hour, but was maybe 30mins, our bags finally showed up right when we were about to give up hope. We grabbed them and ran. Thankfully the next flight was only one terminal away, but we still had to go through security and there were probably 200 people in line. No good. So we beg security to let us through, which they actually did, and then we noticed we were missing a guy. Man down. Unfortunately for him, we're not the US Marines, we left our man behind. We cleared security and sprinted to the gate which was closing when we ran up. We tried to get them to hold the plane for our missing man, but no love from United. The plane was pushing back from the gate before we even sat down. (Turns out our man was detained as part of random screening and actually got a better flight home from the whole ordeal...)
Eventually we land in NYC and I hop in a cab and go the final leg back to the apartment. What a day. We figured out that Feb. 23rd lasted 46 hrs for us, plus the 19hrs we were awake on the 22nd. 65hr day people. That's insane. Good thing I'm flying back to Perth in 10 days...
posted by t. at 12:18 AM
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