After the big quake, lots of people in New Zealand asked themselves “how can I help?”. So some actually got their hands dirty in shoveling liquefaction sand or broken chimneys, some donated money, and some thought “hey, let’s organize a free concert the likes of which New Zealand has never seen yet”.So today there was a free concert in Hagley park which is the central park, the Vondelpark, the Stanleypark of Chch. There was lots of talk about the “famous line up” and “all major NZ bands”, and I didn’t recognize even one of the names.
All the cool kids at work were going (the PhD’s and postdocs) and Gareth said “I’ll give you a call”. But I was out and about the whole morning so after lunch I decided I would give them a call. Only, apparently I left my calendar with all telephone numbers in it at work. I send an email saying this and after an hour decided to just head over to the park anyway and see who I would meet over there.
Well … I met about 100.000 people, but not one that I knew.
But that was fine. I got to see some of NZ’s famous music scene and it was great fun. Some of the bands/singers were really good, others I found annoying. Interestingly I seemed to dislike NZ’s most beloved bands. There was a huge “WAAAAAAAAAAAH” wave when “OpShop” came on and everyone just went crazy and chanted all the songs along and jumped up and higher, and I was just not impressed.
But I liked Anika Moa, the Feelers (who sang the only song that I had heard before, “Stand up”) and Evermore, so I’ll try to get some of their cd’s from the library.
Although this was the largest (free outdoor) concert ever in all of New Zealand (“We are part of history today!!!”), and I was pretty close up to the stage, it was never crowded or unpleasant. It was a great mix of kids, teenagers, families, old rockers and students. Behind us the whole grass field was reserved for picknickers.
Apart from the famous musicians I also saw our mayor and prime minister live on stage. Wow. The mayor even played his guitar for one song with his rocker-heroes. Cute.
Technically it was more a picknick than a concert ...
Some memorable quotes:
- “Hello Christchurch! I heard, huh huh, you had a bit of a shake!”
- “Our prime minister in jeans and sneakers, unbelievable!”
- “J****s f*ck, is that Bob Parker (the mayor)?! What the **** is he doing on stage with a guitar?! F*ck! Now what, is John Key (prime minister) going to do vocals?! J************sh!”
- “To be successful you only need a good voice and a guitar. But no shoes” (apparently one singer came on stage without shoes on. Like many many people attending the event. I even briefly considered taking off my shoes so as to blend in more with the real kiwis)
- “Today we will shake the earth. We will show the earth how to shake. We don’t take it any longer, today WE decide how to shake!” YYYEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!
