The First Wild Poppies Gig
Okay – first things first: We were really young.
I was like 12… ie: 21. That’s young. No idea what we were doing, or why, or whatever.
We’d been rehearsing for about 6 months or so in the basement of Alan’s mum’s place, and somehow (I suppose someone must have asked) landed a gig supporting these guys:
who were this week’s flavour of the month at the time (this was around 1986 I think). I really like that song. It’s kindof like a magazine – you can just kindof dip into it at any point and listen to it for a bit, and then like, flip channels or whatever. So long as you get at least one dose of chorus, which is utterly sublime.
I didn’t love this then like I do now. Mind you, I don’t think I loved anything then like I do now. The binoculars of 20:20 hindsight vision are rose-tinted.
We donated the gig-income to NORML – the marijuana-legalisation/legal-victim-support organisation, and the gig was raided by the police, at random I suppose – there was a lot of that in NZ in the 80s.
All of that was Ian’s idea – he was kindof the high-concept guy who dreamed up most of the big ideas we had – his last big project was to collect enough sleeping pills to move upstairs. He was the drummer… for a while.
So we did this gig – Cricketers in Wellington, NZ – this bleak, weaponised bit of 1970s concrete brutalist architecture, which (weirdly) had a pub in it. It’s still there… waiting to be pulled down I suspect. The 80s were kindof cold. We all hated pretty much everything about the 80s.
Pretty much the only thing I can remember about that gig, apart from my glittery-cheeked girlfriend and the room suddenly being filled with busy-body police, was the light – the lights. The warmth of that. I wasn’t that nervous (okay, a bit), but once on stage, it was being in this wonderful warm bath – all orange and green… red and purple and blue. The sound was probably terrible. The light was fucking gorgeous. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. More light.
Nice Nick – I wasn’t at that show. I saw Snekys play in Palmy. Probably same tour.
So cool what an awesome account!!! I remember the cricketers and you guys playing there. Such a huge part of the 80’s in welly.
A life defining moment for me too…which I’d totally forgotten so thanks for remembering that Nick! Must have got the gig thru Ian who knew the PA guy, someone called Peter Something I think. Used to store his PA shit at Crescendo Studios where Ian ‘worked’ as the trainee tea maker and I used to hang around listening to hilarious outtakes of Colonel Sanders KFC adverts which used to do the rounds.
Yea – Derrick. He was force of nature. Used to drink scotch by the flagon.
(to the uninitiated, there used to be this Kiwi music studio-owner who was like a cross between Johnny Fever off WKRP in Cincinnati, and David Crosby, and a violent maniac. He was equal mixtures of fascinating and terrifying)
I went round there once to hang out with Ian… and Derrek was there… and there was a TON of “tension in the air”… which finally broke with him charging over to where I was sitting and bellowing in my face “WHO THE FUCK DRESSED YOU???? MY FUCKING WIFE????”
Turns out his missus had bought him all this “trendy clothing” (it was the 80s (shudder)), and then forced him to wear it – todays outfit being a white linen shirt (loose fitting) and sky-blue trousers with an elasticated waist.
And entirely by accident, I was wearing exactly the same thing – hadn’t realised.
He had tho – managed to keep a lid on his emotions for about 15 minutes or so, then there was this massive explosion. It took me about 4 days to recover.