An epic day

Two rather interesting things happened to me today.

1. I met John Birmingham.
2. I saw an awesome gig (I've become interested in reviewing as of late after giggling at the bitchy user reviews on my247.com.au, so I'm trying to write my experience in that format)

1. I met John Birmingham. You know, the author of one of my favourite books which I quite possibly count as a major influence behind why and how I write? Yeah, that dude. After he randomly came across my blog a few entries back, Dan had emailed him and asked him to sign my book for my birthday (I turned 20 on the weekend, by the way). It conveniently turned into a lunch meeting. Holy cow! I slipped into "quiet, softly-spoken and socially retarded" mode due to pure shock of meeting someone whose life I've repeatedly read about in He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and a few of his other autobiographical books. Knowing a bunch of intimate details - deeper things than you'd find on a myspace profile - about someone before you meet them is a very bizarre feeling.

Nevertheless, John turned out to be a really friendly guy and I quickly got over my "oh my god I'm stuffing my face with spicy Chinese food in front of one of my favourite authors". It was great to meet him, even though I was concentrated on not coming across as a dickhead the entire time. Hey, I guess I just don't meet many famous people.

2. Tonight was the Gyroscope concert, supported by the Shihad and Sugar Army. You know it's been a good gig when you declare to anyone who will listen that "I'm going to marry everyone from Gyroscope."

This prestigious event took place at the Arena, which I've never been to before. Performance-wise, there wasn't much to complain about; vertically challenged people such as myself had the option of viewing the bands from an upstairs area, and the lighting was meticulously perfected, which added a real bang to the show. Now I might just be being a bar nerd here, but the Arena's bar service is awful. I understand that the Arena is a music venue, not a bar, but the bar staff seemed like a bunch of random kids that were chosen for their indie charm rather than skill or experience. One girl looked positively terrified as she slowly and carefully measured out the shots, and I earned a "oh my god I can't believe you're drinking that" look of disgust from another girl when I ordered a Corona. I'm terribly sorry, should I have ordered one of the many cans of VB in the fridge? I gave up after that.


Yuck!

Oh, and the floor was sticky.

Sugar Army started the night off with what I first perceived as intense indie rock. Unfortunately, they quickly ran out of steam by the third song. After playing one of their songs that I vaguely remember hearing on Triple J, the songs all seemed to melt into an ocean of mediocrity; the highs and lows were predictable, the ambitious progressive guitar riffs didn't make sense, and the singer sang out of tune.
I was also put off by the way they danced. I usually enjoy when band members move around when performing, but this was ridiculous. The guitarist's signature move was bouncing around in a circle as though he lacked knees, while the bassist assumed a move where he looked like he was attempting the splits while pelvically thrusting at the drummer. I put this down to the fact that they were both wearing extremely tight pants.

Shihad were on next. I admit that I don't know many songs of this immensely popular New Zealand heavy rock band, but I was greatly entertained as they made up for Sugar Army's lacklustre performance and then some. Singer Jon Toogood announced that Shihad had been together for 20 years this. That's right. This band are as old as I am, and they still bloody rock. It's great to see a band that obviously loves performing. A most impressive feat was Jon's journey into the crowd, up the stairs, pausing to play guitar over the balcony, run behind us (!!), run around to the other side of the stage and jump off a speaker stack back onto the stage. Followed by a leap into the air on the final guitar riff of the song. Brilliant!

Just when I thought that Shihad had topped everybody in the "most energetic band of the night' competition, Gyroscope ripped through a set that left me awestruck, euphoric and smitten. There's a certain harmony to explosive guitar riffs combined with the sugary sweet vocals of singer/guitarist Daniel Sanders. It's interesting to see the differences between their old and new songs; their older songs have a very strong punk influence, while the songs off their newest album Breed Obsession are more melodic, with a moody grunge feel to them. You could tell that every lyric that Daniel sang or screamed was genuine - even when he unexpectedly launched into a cover of Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning". You could tell that there must be something special about this band when everybody in the audience sings along to every song, word for word. Gyroscope performed with a passion that left everybody smiling, hugging, dancing and reaching out to touch the amazing band members as they shook the hands of some lucky punters in the audience. Their final song, "Snakeskin", made the entire Arena turn into a moshing, singing frenzy.

I emerged from the Arena dazed, happy and full of love. Which is how everybody should feel after any good gig.


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