Okay – not literally the last… just the last gig that I ever did in New Zealand.

This one was in a Mexican restaurant in Wellington… or… a building that I’d been to about a year before when it was a Mexican restaurant, and now it was this massive red-brick (mmm lovely) lined hall on one of those alleys off the back of Dixon Street or whatever.

It was non-descript.

I remember only one thing about this gig – and that was everyone laughing at me.

There we were… we turned up… we had our sound-check… we hung about, then someone said “ok, time to go on”.

“What?” I wailed, “There’s no one here yet!”

I was such an innocent back then – I had literally never been to a gig that wasn’t sold out. NZ drinking laws were really tight – the legal age was 20, I was 21 – but I looked like a girl so I got hassled every time. Bars/Pubs etc were filled with big violent adults. In my mind, I’d kindof worked out this idea that a gig started when there were enough people in the audience to make it worth doing.

No one was there yet – there were about 6 people in the audience. Everyone laughed.

I did the gig… I packed the my stuff into the car… left the venue.

I left the band, I left Wellington, I left New Zealand.

…

Time passed…