alt title: if I could live that night again, I'd do everything the other way, probably

Rock Night turned out to be another retro DJ evening (hosted by Dave Gibson of Elemenop, nice guy), looks like it's intended to be a regular thing, although I thought Cheese On Toast already had that covered with the Quay Street Social Club-that's-not-in-Quay-Street. Perhaps they just don't play enough Rock. I've noticed that there seem to be a lot of peeps that go to gigs to socialise rather than watch the bands though, so I imagine that's generating a market for a more indie equivalent of a night out at the viaduct (ok, points for sensing some veiled snobbery there). I know I'm guilty (of turning up for the socialising), although in this case I wanted to see the band.

It was a busy night, I'd actually bought tickets for the Brunettes gig, and A Low Hum was showing the Camp A Low Hum movie & featuring the Cut Off Your Hands Jukebox and So So Karaoke. I'm still kicking myself for not making the effort to get to that gig, but ultimately Free Mint Chicks plus guaranteed companion plus not-having-to-go-into-Newmarket plus obligatory-birthday-drinks-for-tclak-just-up-the-road won out. Tell you what though, Prozaco & I were talking about the joys and annoyances of having so many choices, and we agreed that all too often our brains somehow just get tired of trying to decide and we end up staying home. That's the lamest first world problem I've ever heard.

Anyway, the place looked pretty packed from the outside, but it turned out that it was just that a third of the crowd had crammed into the outdoor seating area to smoke. So we hung about while Prozaco talked to her legion of mates, and I drank, and endeavoured to make smalltalk with anyone that'd been sidelined, up until I caved and started drunken texting my better half, who had just finished his gig-for-the-money and popped on down. OK, I can see that this is ending up a bit of a nothing review, because really, up until midnight, nothing happened. Oh, someone played Knock Me Down, which is the song that got me interested in the Chilis, so that's cool. I mentioned that to one smalltalk guy and he said it was before his time, which was a bit of an eye-opener. He's not really that much younger than me, but I counted, and about the time I was discovering Good Music in my second year at university, he was still at intermediate. This probably goes for quite a large proportion of my friends. Hell, Prozaco would have barely started primary school. Yeesh!

OK, one thing to know about Safari is it's real crap for live bands; particularly those that benefit from being Watched, like...y'know, the Mint Chicks. I like their latest songs a lot more than their earlier ones, but I maintain that the stage show is a very significant part of what I like about them. The venue is a kind of L-shape, and the stage (all of ten centimetres off the ground) is up around the back. I envisage the architect suggesting they hide the weird music-loving people out the back where they won't bother the decent pool-playing sports-bar blokes. We found the stage pretty much by virtue of the scrum in front of it, and once the band had started (the sound was ok, I guess) I got the occasional brief glimpse of what looked like a white gimp mask bouncing about. That was the sum total of the stage show from where I was standing. I picked up Prozaco so that she could see that much. By the start of the fourth song, we established that we'd be taking our lives into our own hands trying to get any closer to the stage (the crowd was getting quite exuberant) and we wandered off to Grand Central for a glass of wine. Wandered back to Safari half an hour later, caught the last few songs, went home.

Here's the surreal part: apparently we didn't miss much. Rumour has it that four songs into the set, the band stopped because people were getting a bit too boisterous, stage diving & the like. They started back up about twenty minutes later, so just in time for us to return. I'd noticed that everyone seemed a little more sober, I figured it was just the lateness of the hour. It's weird though, attending a relatively uneventful gig, then later having to be informed what a lame duck it really was.

PS: If anyone went to the A Low Hum movie screening, I'd love to hear about it. Suffice it to say I'll make more of an effort to get to the Friday night shows at Space Bar in future; they've been throwing a buncha gems recently and thus far I've missed them all. Y'know, cos they're in Newmarket & all. For shame!

The Mint Chicks
Safari Lounge
August 17th, 2007

Earworm: meh.
Rating: meh. Would be higher if I'd been around to get pissy about the band stopping their set.