Bye Nana

My Nana died today. This is the last time I saw her, at my Dad's wedding last September. She liked to dance. Love you Nana.

Hawaii

Usually after being out of the country for a while I'm pretty psyched to get back to the states, if only for familiarity's sake (and the abundance of ice & napkins). Coming from New Zealand & Australia I was less eager to return. I could've easily spent the rest of their summer down there, returning north in mid May or so. Of course, the fact that we were going to Hawaii on the way home made leaving that much easier. I'd never been to Hawaii and was looking forward to a few days in paradise. I hadn't figured on Waikiki. Now, I know it may seem utterly ridiculous to most people to bitch about being 'stuck' in Waikiki, and I certainly enjoyed it as much as I could. But this place is like Orlando, Vegas and downtown LA all puked in a pile on an island. The absolute epitome of a tourist trap. Shitty, cheesy hotels and chain restaurants in all directions. Busloads of the kinds of tourists that thrive in these ready-made, one-stop vacation hell holes. I spent the first day on the beach getting a sunburn and swimming, drinking beer at a resort bar and fighting the newest wave of jetlag. When you fly from Australia to Hawaii you cross the date line, so we left Sydney at 8:00pm on Sunday and landed in Honolulu, 10 hours later, at 9am on Sunday. On top of that you're going from summer to winter, which in Hawaii doesn't affect you so much temperature-wise, but length of daylight-wise it's a bit of a headfuck. I crawled into bed early, cursing how strong the sun has become and sticky with aloe lotion.

This is what you want to see when you get off an 11 hour flight...

Kapiolani Beach Park, Waikiki...

Not a bad place to battle the jetlag...
Hotel Balconies, Waikiki...
Sunset in Waikiki...
The next day was show day. Mine started as every day in paradise should...with drilling and hammering across the hall at 9am. We were supposed to be staying at the Sheraton on the beach but the promoter-cheap, slimy bastards that they are-switched us at the last minute to the 'Renew' hotel, a couple blocks off the beach and completely under renovation. I could go off on a profanity-laced tirade about this hotel, but that'll be no fun for anyone.

ANYWAY, the show was at a club called the Pipeline, which actually wasn't too bad of a room. I was stuck right onstage next to Mickey again. Like Perth, it was an amazing place to be for the show, but far too visible for my tastes. Still, I settled in for the last show of the tour and watched the band proceed to play for almost 4 hours (3:45 to be exact). It was probably the best show I've seen them do. The encore alone will go down in Ween history. It was definitely a fitting way to end this run. I even got Mickey to do 'Goin Gets Tough' for me. They finally wound it down with LMLYP and the usual stage full of dancing girls. I don't think most of these girls understand how long they'll be up there when they jump on stage. They usually get to the point where they don't know what to do with themselves. Rock and roll ain't what it used to be.

Pipeline, 2 minutes to showtime...

Does this happen at your work?...
The club had these crazy jets that would come on for like 20 seconds and cool the place down by blasting the crowd with CO2. They looked amazing...
Gabe changes the 1000th string of the tour...
I had basically 2 more days there after the show. The first day was spent sleeping in and hanging out in the beach front park, using the palm trees to hide from the sun. The next day Chip & I rented a Mustang convertible (as you do) and drove up the coast to the North Shore. This was much nicer than Waikiki and much more like paradise. Still, you get the impression that Oahu isn't the nicest of the islands. The waves up north were unreal. We met a local on the beach who, after hearing we were not, in fact, from Hawaii but NYC, hugged us both and called us 'Brother Chip & Brother Jamie'. I couldn't help but laugh to think of how a more 'typical' New Yorker might have reacted to this overture. Me? I just gave him a squeeze and said 'mahalo'...

The east coast of Oahu...

I hate zoos and even more I hate seeing birds in cages. Especially big ones like this guy...

A sure sign that you're in some shitty tourist trap is if you see a guy spray-painted silver being really still. You know, like a robot. This robot is apparently a big Mighty Ducks fan as well...

It's funny how in one day you can go from this (North Shore of Oahu)...
To this (Newark, NJ)...

Last Days In Oz

Ween's tour of Australia ended with 2 shows in Melbourne at the Forum and a slot at the Golden Plains festival in Meredith, which is a couple hours outside of Melbourne. The Forum is an old elaborate theater that's actually been split into 2 venues. We played the main room with all sorts of statues and whatnot looking all grandiose and yet rundown and haggard. The balcony is walled off into it's own all-seated theater which seemed to be used as a movie theater. There's all kinds of passageways and dark, closed off places, giving the place better than average character. Both shows here were top-notch and well-received. The last night ended with the whole band playing Claude's drum kit.

The Forum, pre crowd...

Mickey, pre-show...

The backstage at the Forum hasn't been so much as painted since it opened. There were all kinds of cool, old signs painted in the dank basement halls & stairwells. I like that kind of shit so I took some pictures...

A more typical vantage point for my world than Perth...
Chip works the smoke...

Johnny On the Spot...

Debating the encore...

The drum jam...

The day of the 2nd show I walked around Melbourne a bit and checked out the Nick Cave exhibit. Mickey couldn't get his head around the idea of an exhibit for a guy that's still alive and making records, but I think this made it more interesting as Cave was involved with choosing what went in and wrote and recorded stories about various items. It was a lot of photos and typical memorabilia type stuff but there was a bunch of really cool stuff that belongs to him that gave a different sort of insight into the man's creative process than a normal museum exhibit would. Pictures were tough to get but I got a couple.

A couple random Melbourne shots...
The Nick Cave Exhibit...

The last day we made the hour & a half drive out into nothingness for the festival. It was one of the most remote festivals I've done and one of the smaller ones too. It was a bit lacking in amenities but they made up for it with good vibes and an accommodating attitude. Saw Iron & Wine play which was good but I prefer the solo acoustic setup to the full band. The gig itself went well once it got going but the 30mins before were a nightmare getting ready. Typical festival. On the ride back into Melbourne you could see more stars than I've seen in years. No ozone to get in the way I guess. After one last night in a "serviced apartment", it was back to the airport and off to Hawaii.

The road to Golden Plains...

Hospitality...
The Pink Flamingo...
Chip is a city boy who was shy about the cows at first...

But we had him up to speed soon enough...
The Front Row...
Festival crowd...

Chip & Gener wait...
And back to America. There's no place like home...