One, two, three, four, five against one

Christchurch (11/28-11/29)


Top 5 people that I’m told I look like:

5. Jeremiah Johnson

4. The dude

3. Eddie Vedder

2. The Geico Cave Men

1. Jesus (fully grown Jesus, not sweet baby Jesus)

I have also heard Grizzly Adams, Kris Kristofferson, Sebastian Chebal and most recently Charles Manson.

After eating a second Thanksgiving meal for breakfast on Saturday morning, I split with Team Lacy and set a course for Christchurch, New Zealand. It was there that I met my long lost friend Morgan Tucker. Morgan and I were classmates together at Chapel Trafton Academy (which is currently referred to in the common tongue as Dunham) from grades 1 through 4. I learned through mutual friends that he has been a kiwi for about 8 months now. I contacted Morgan before leaving the United States and he has been my personal New Zealand advisor ever since. He lives in Queenstown and is hosting me until we find a new place. In a similar fashion to Harry Bowers, I hold Morgan in the highest regard for everything he has done in helping me transition into New Zealand.

Morgan and two of his buddies, Craig and Ed, had driven to Christchurch from Queenstown that afternoon and I met them at their hotel. Craig and Ed are both from England and at the end of the weekend it still was a struggle for me to understand them. It was also quite frustrating to realize that Craig could imitate our southern Louisiana accents perfectly, while our impressions of their British accents were pretty much god awful. I was impressed that both of the Englishmen were big fans of Team America. They would randomly yell out “America” in the fashion of the movie, and I would whole heartedly finish the line for them in call and answer fashion. We gorged on some Chinese food and then hit a mildly cheesy bar called Sullivan’s where what I thought was a Kings of Leon cover band was playing as that was all I heard for the first 20 minutes we were there. The band turned out to decent, covering a wide range of material, and about halfway through the night the lead singer announced to the crowd “hey, Eddie Vedder is here tonight” and then pointed at me. We all got a kick out of that.

Of course Eddie Vedder was not in fact at Sullivan’s, the Irish pub, but he was in Christchurch gearing up for the Sunday night gig we were anticipating.

An American Sunday

On Sunday morning, Morgan and I checked into the Base Hostel in downtown Christchurch. Base is a chain of hostels in New Zealand and I believe Australia and from what I can tell are the most popular hostels to stay at in the country. Each Base hostel is flanked by a bar that never seems to close, with edgy original names like Basement, Sinners & Saints, and Altitude. The hostels themselves vary in quality, but Christchurch seemed to have a decent facility. The weather in the city was pretty dismal: cold, rainy and overcast. This was discouraging to me as the concert we were there for was to be outdoors at the AMI rugby stadium and I was starting to develop a throat cold.

We threw our backpacks on our bunks and walked a few blocks to a giant sports bar called The Holy Grail (a name that I actually do think is kind of original). We ordered French fries, pizza (my first pie since leaving the states) and beers and sat down in front of the only TV that had an American football game on, which was Stanford vs. Notre Dame. After weeks of not seeing any football, I FINALLY reach a destination where I can see a football game and the ONE game they are showing is Notre Dame vs. Stanford?! We watched this game with no sound as the Grail’s speaker system was broadcasting a cricket match. On that note, if I ever meet a professional cricket player, I’m going to immediately punch him in the face for participating in the promotion of the most boring sport on the planet. I’d seriously rather watch my fingernails grow and have plenty of opportunities to do just that, as cricket is broadcasted on TV’s everywhere in New Zealand. But I digress and I exaggerate as we were actually quite content to watch any kind of football that involved pigskin. I caught a few clips from the LSU game and found myself more distracted by horrendous uniforms the Tigers were wearing than the score of the game. Happy to leave Charlie Weiss on the screen in the bar, we bolted for AMI Stadium around 4:30 with our British cohorts.
If my memory serves me correctly the first live rock show I ever attended was a Becky Sharp concert at the Varsity in Baton Rouge and I was probably 12 or 13 years old. Or maybe it was Better than Ezra? Either way, since then I have spent countless hours in various bars, venues, arenas, stadiums and grassy fields listening to live music. As a live music fan I’ve endured the sweet with the sour. Some concerts are spectacular and others are more forgettable, but once in a blue moon you catch a show that can only be described as special. I wasn’t expecting a special show when I bought the Pearl Jam ticket and the weather was all the time lowering my expectations, but I was in for a nice surprise.

Liam Finn was on stage when we arrived. I wasn’t familiar with his music, but immediately suspected that he must be some descendant of the Crowded House Finns. His music was experimental and noisy, but not awful. He proved to be a decent drummer on a few of his tunes, but I wasn’t rushing out to buy his album after his set. The first highlight of the night came when Eddie Vedder joined Liam on stage to do Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl”. Eddie’s voice is so distinctive that anytime he covers a tune it takes on an entirely different dynamic. He seems to have a real knack for singing Neil Young songs.

Ben Harper and the Relentless 7 took the stage after Finn. The Relentless 7 is Harper’s latest backing band and is in fact comprised of only 3 guys. Critics and fans alike trashed the album he recorded with them and I was longing for his original band, the Innocent Criminals, for most of their show. The music wasn’t bad; it just didn’t keep my attention for very long. Eddie provided a spark in their mellow set and stole the show when he jumped on stage for “Under Pressure”.

The general admission area in front of the stage was tightly packed by the time Pearl Jam took the stage. The first hour of music was solid and included fan favorites like Once, Animal, and Elderly Women behind the counter in a Small Town. The show really kicked up a notch with Even Flow. Pearl Jam normally plays their songs tight and fast, with little improvisation or variation. This night proved to be different as Mike Mccready wrecked havoc on lead guitar for about five minutes at the end of Even Flow. He was on fire and really got the crowd energized despite the light cold rain that started to fall. I was pleasantly surprised to hear one of my personal favorites, “Garden”, played a few songs later as it rarely makes it onto the set list. This was followed by two rockers, “Do the Evolution” and “Go” and then PJ took their first exit. As it turns out, this was the last show of Pearl Jam’s international tour and also the first time they had included New Zealand as a stop in over 12 years. They wanted to go out with a bang and they certainly would.

The first encore opened with Eddie singing an acoustic song I didn’t recognize. Then the crowd got to participate in singing Happy Birthday to drummer Matt Cameron. Ben Harper came out to play slide guitar on “Red Mosquito” and sing on “Indifference”. They closed with “The Fixer”, a very radio friendly song from their latest album. I could have left more than satisfied with what I had seen and heard after this. But it was not to be.

The second encore opened with the 1-2 punch of “Jeremy” and “Betterman”, which was followed by another great cover in “The Real Me”, by The Who. I thought for sure that would be the end of the show, when I was stunned to hear Eddie welcome Liam Finn and his father Neil Finn to the stage. I was enthralled. I knew that the Crowded House front man was extremely popular in New Zealand and also a huge PJ influence, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to see him perform that night. 35,000 people screamed along to the Crowded House classic “You’d Better be Home Soon”. Neil and Liam stayed on for one more number and then the band launched into “Alive” as the rain picked up, heightening the dark song. Every musician who had played that night returned to the stage for a roaring rendition of “Keep on Rocking in the Free World”. PJ members loaned instruments to Relentless 7 players and Eddie threw tambourines to anyone who didn’t have something to play. Harper got the crowd clapping and stomping while Mccready and Stone Gossard burned through face-melting guitar solos. Everyone took a bow to a well deserved ovation and THEN I REALLY THOUGHT THE FREAKING CONCERT WAS OVER when Eddie ran back on stage grinning and said “How bought one more?” as the familiar chords of “Yellow Ledbetter” came on.

Remaining consistent with all things I have experienced in New Zealand, the entire evening was truly amazing. Back at the hostel guy who looked nice and buzzed threw his arm around me and told me how awesome it was that I looked like Eddie Vedder. One final incident really made the day truly American, at least for me. Morgan and I were standing outside the hostel when a barefoot kid who could not have been over 20 years of age or over 110 lbs. in weight came shooting out of the entrance. He lunged for the handrails and immediately started projectile vomiting. He then looked up at us grinning and attempted to stand, but ended up stumbling about 10 feet in the other direction before falling over onto a drain grate where he lost the rest of the bourbon and cokes he had been consuming all night. We found this incredibly funny and reminiscent of something you might see in Tigerland or East 6th street on a Saturday night. It was a good note to end the evening, and the Christchurch trip on. I would not find the Japanese kid who decided to blow dry and straighten his hair in our dorm room at 7 am the next morning nearly as amusing……

Personally, I see no resemblance what so ever