Powderfinger ~ Passenger
(written: 25 March 2004)
Well. This entry I've decided, is going to be a somewhat depressing one to write. I know this because I'm listening to the song I'm going to write about and I already feel like bursting into tears and thrashing about and wailing and burning down buildings and such.
My. Red. Stapler.
Remember a couple of weeks ago I wrote about We Float by PJ Harvey and the whole "Auckland" thing? "Auckland", like it doesn't really exist anywhere but my mind, and on some occasions my worst nightmare. It's amazing how a few short days and just a couple of people can have such a huge effect on your life.
*sigh*
Much like We Float brings back the memories, that's nothing compared to what, well, pretty much the entire album Internationalist by Powderfinger does to me.
You see, I went to Auckland expecting to see a couple of shows and meet some people I'd been friends with to varying degrees of closeness for a couple of years... almost as an aside. Come on. Eddie Vedder was playing with Neil Finn. My two favourite male musicians, who's duets I had heard in the past and just... curled up and died inside thinking I'd never get to see anything so wonderful.
Neil Finn released an album in 2001 called One Nil. To celebrate this he did a couple of tours, one for university orientation and one that was heavily rumoured to be a full week of shows featuring musicians he'd worked with in the past. The rumours! Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Sheryl Crow. Grant Lee Phillips. Wendy and Lisa. And... a little chap named Eddie Vedder. The problem was, as glorious as this all sounded, no one knew for sure WHO would be on WHAT night, if at all. Press releases weren't exactly flying hard and fast. And I was still at university and as such couldn't take off the entire week to see something I wasn't too sure about, missing the last week of the term...
I was distraught. If it had been in Wellington then I would have gone to a few, maybe all (yeah right), but the fact of the matter was all I had were rumours and that wasn't enough to base a trip on. Then I got a message from a friend of mine named Leigh who lived in Sydney with his journalist girlfriend Jenni. They'd investigated and had found out that the rumours weren't entirely true. There wouldn't be a different musician guest each night. No. Each guest would be a part of the "permanent" band and they'd do the same line up each night for the full 5 days.
Holy crap I said. Holy crap. Even better was of course WHO the guests were. Mainly Eddie Vedder actually...
So I planned. I schemed. I got to go to Auckland that April instead of having a 21st birthday party, the rite of passage of any young person. To me it was a damn good trade, seeing as how I didn't want a 21st party in the first place. Then everything blew up in my face (I wonder if this could possibly be the reason all these fucking entries are so sissy and waaauuuugh waaaaaaugh waaaaaaaugh... blech?)...
Turbulent times followed. I made sure I wouldn't have any problems with accomodation by myself (chuuuurrrrr cuz) and would know plenty of people at the gigs so I didn't get lonely. Then I got an email from one of the Aussie boys (Shaq) telling me they'd all decided to head over from NSW in Australia to see a couple of the shows, the same ones as me no less.
Well, I was excited.
So we saw some shows. We spent time together. We forged friendships that we just didn't have before, regardless of how much we all liked each other. I became very attached to them and when it came time for them to leave at 5am on the Sunday morning, I said my goodbyes on the curbside outside their hotel in downtown Auckland and then cried my heart out. Then I got a taxi and went to sleep wearing the shirt Shaq had given me (off his back!).
Sigh.
I came back home. I missed my boys a whole big bunch and we kept in touch via emails and ICQ. The only one of them who really had net time available to him was Tom. Those mid-term holidays were spent talking to him mainly and nuturing my new found love for his favourite Aussie band, Powderfinger. And Shaq's. And Pat's.
Now Powderfinger were HUGE in Oz, but it wasn't really until My Happiness came out here that I even HEARD them. That's how much Aussie bands are pushed in NZ. Stupid isn't it? So by the time I met the guys I was already a fan of that album but hadn't listened much to the others. I used to happily chat away with Tom while listening to Internationalist and rave about how much I loved them. He liked it when I got the lyrics horribly wrong. Or he hated it. I forget.
Caged, hold so tight until your knockers show
Heheh. Psst. It's KNUCKLES.
It came time for me to go back to school. And to me that signified the official end of the experience. I could no longer spend the day talking with the Aussies, and the only way I could relive Auckland was to tell people back at school... Everything that had happened (once again I say) depressed the holy living hell out me.
Anyway, one thing led to another, I dropped out of a major. Fucking best friends with their whorepants! Eventually I lost Tom's friendship. And I guess that's why Passenger hurts a little to listen to.
Side note: This is here in the interests of posterity. Basically, apart from the concerts, "Auckland" as it MEANT to me when I was a kid (when I was 21 I was still a kid) means little to me as an "adult". Chalk it up to the fact that I was a crybaby (more than I am now).