Australia Spring Tour 2022 - Day 1: Naarm (Melbourne)
Nau mai
Inanahi, i haere mātou ki Naarm/Melbourne.
Tēnei te wiki ō te reo Māori! Ka tuhi ahau i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā.
As you can see it is Māori language week in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We in The Beths are enjoying the celebration of our beautiful Pacific language while visiting our great Pacific neighbour, Australia.
The story picks up from yesterday morning when the tour began but we did fly over the evening before on a waka rererangi, a Qantas Airbus A330.
It always feels sad but special flying away from Aotearoa. If you depart to the west you get to fly over the Āwhitu Peninsular and see the point where the farmland abruptly ends and becomes a rugged, clay cliff meeting the line of shallow and dangerous-looking west-coast surf.
And it also feels special arriving in another land, in this case Australia’s south coast, somewhere around Croajingolong National Park.
The Kia Carnival, our new favourite rental vehicle.
Tristan and I began our day in Naarm/Melbourne with a run around Royal Park, which our hotel was perched on the edge of. I’ve captured the spontaneous, ‘living in the moment’ mood of our jog quite well in the below photograph, shot from the hip as I duck under some suddenly-appearing tree fronds.
Jon and Liz are in high demand at the moment. Our new album was released today and everyone wants to interview them. Tristan and I are the interview ‘b team’ and while we are on high priority standby we haven’t had the call-up, yet. While the ‘A team’ were hard at work spinning stories at ABC studios, we were hard at work spinning a Bánh mì order from HM Cafe at The Mag-Pie Shop. A fresh loaf of parāoa filled with crispy poaka gave us plenty of sustenance for the long afternoon of pre-show setup that was to follow.
I am making an effort to learn the indigenous place names for the places we are visiting on this run. If I make any mistakes please feel free to let me know in the comments, or email me.
breakfastandtravelupdates@breakfastandtravelupdates.com
Naarm is the name used for the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, where the city of Melbourne now resides. The central party of the city lies on the lands of the Wurundjeri People, one of the five Aboriginal clans that make up the Kulin Nation, and that is where our venue was located, right in the heart of Melbourne’s Chinatown.
You might have looked closely at the above image and thought “I think I recognise a few of those fellows!". That is because New Zealand’s Best Band Hans Pucket have joined us for the first few shows of this little tour, and there they are, setting up on the stage of our venue, 170 Russell. It was 2019 when we last played a show with Hans Pucket and although we would love to have them come along on every tour NZ Ministry of Arts and Culture regulations prohibit repeat tour bills on anything shorter than a biennial basis.
Out walking the vibrant streets of Chinatown after our pre-show meal.
Hans Pucket will have seven-hundred new fans after the performance they gave last night. The new palette of sounds they have garnered from the addition of virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Callum Passells has given their live breadth and added a whole new level of detail. We were lucky enough to hear the live premier of their new single No Drama. The video for that song is another masterpiece from our friends Sports Team and I would highly recommend checking it out.
Not to be bettered by our supporting act we premiered a new song of our own and it is the fastest song we have ever played, certainly a lot faster than any of Hans Pucket’s songs. Anthony Metcalf shot nice set of photos during our performance which display some of the beautiful lighting states we were bathed in at different parts of the evening.
The night had a rather abrupt ending after our set. As we were beginning the second song of our encore we heard a voice in our earphones telling us that we were past the venue curfew and that we should stop. There was a club night happening right after our show and they needed to clear the stage and kick the audience out ASAP to turn the room into a night club. Unfortunately for them the train was already well out of the station and we continued to the end of our encore feeling a great spirit of defiance pulsing through our veins.
As we walked off the stage a great many stage hands came along and cleared everything away in a jiffy, making way for the DJ to get beats started.
We hustled our gear into the tiny elevator and loaded out into the rainbow alleyway, enjoying the task of filling the abundance of cargo space in the rear of our Grand Utility Vehicle, the Kia Carnival.
Kupu o te Rā is hiamo. It means excited.
Word of the day
Kei te hiamo mātou for the release of our new album today!
We are excited
Ka kite āno.
See you again.