today i did a lot of time wasting. it was awesome. yesterday was my first real day home since i didnt get back on monday night until after 10. my flight was delayed for the better part of an hour out of sydney. i really didnt mind though because i just sat there playing with my computer for an hour. stephs flight was delayed too. she was supposed to leave 45 minutes before me, but we saw each other on the sky bus back to the city. go figure.

most of tuesday i spent online. yes, i am a nerd. i hadnt been online in the better part of a week so there were lots of things to catch up on. not even emails but just crap to go look at. you know how it is.

my phone was stolen on saturday night in sydney which was total shit, ruining what had been a very good good night until that point. on monday i went to vodafone three times to get a replacement sim card which the trainee was having major issues assigning to me. then the more knowledgeable employee couldnt get it to work because my account was clearly just fucked. when i realized my phone had been taken i called to put a block on the sim card and whatever they did online could not easily be undone in the store. so, due to my phone getting stolen and a few other things i now have no desire to go back to sydney.

last night i met up with grant, adil, and tyler to dinner on lygon. always an interesting night when multiple canadians are involved. im downloading blades of glory now so i can be more well informed of quotable lines. adil and grant had just been traveling too so we traded so stories of where we went and how it was. we had papa ginos pizza and it was excellent. i had the mexican pizza and it burned my mouth. again, excellent. we had to contemplate where to go for gelato since gelatissimo still has a million flavours of chocolate promotion going on. due to a veto on that one, we went to il dolce freddo. never a disapointment. except for the fact they put their prices up. i havent been since they reopened in august but the small now costs more. the whole place still smells like durian which is quite funny. when i was in a grocery store in hong kong the entire fruits and vegetable section stank of durian too. meh.

today i havent been outside yet. i was going to do laundry and unpack all my stuff and get organized. ive managed to do most of that other than the actual laundry part. everything is all cleaned up and i even cleaned a lot of the rest of the apartment. my bedroom and bathroom got very dusty in the time i was away.

oh there was something semi exciting today. i got tickets to see cornell in october. when i ran into hinn on sunday he told me of the upcoming non opening for linkin park shows in sydney and melbourne. me and dawnie are going to rock out at that the forum in a few weeks. and, i got ticket to daft punk in december. melbourne is getting two shows for whatever reason. sydney only has one.. suckers. the first show sold out and some point in the past while i was not in the country. the second show to be added is the day before that one.

then i spent some time going through photos from my trip and resizing them and doing stuff like this which is painfully slow to upload on my broadband connection. how i hate the internet in australia. (it may take a while to load):



down in it.
luna park, sydney
9.15.07

after being in hk for 5 days before my visit to korea i was very happy to be coming back for the 40 layover and go to the show. since it was hk and i knew the first people in line were all going to be foreigners we didnt rush to get to the venue. the people who waited around for most of the day had the venue staff against them in attempting to organize a line. the venue did a decent job of putting up dividers to create a line they just did it 6 hours too late.

a message to venues that do not host concerts very often: letting people run down moving escalators is not safe. taking tickets on a different level from the entrance to the hall is really dumb. perhaps this should be rethought such that there is an orderly line up by the hall doors, not upstairs, then you are not asking for someone to fall down a moving staircase.
that said, running into the venue is quite fun. the last time i did shows in europe, 7 years ago, they didnt seem to care either if people ran like hell to get to the barrier either. back then, the distance was significantly shorter.

the venue was less of a airline hanger than i thought i would be. it was a huge room used to converntions/ conferences that had been black curtained off in attempt to save some of the acoustics.

the opening band, the lovesong was decent. i like realy liked whatever their 4th songs was. with less guitar and more bass it could have passed for hard energy music. they seemed really happy to be there and alluded to the need to get an hk scene going since there didnt seem to be much happening locally musicwise.

the barrier seemed to be pretty far from the stage.. no anticipation of flying guitarists tonight. the screen for M,IN/ TGD/ etc. was much closer so it felt like they were right there when playing the middle part of the show. the screens looked less wide too, but that was likely because the stage set up and much more space at the sides.

the setlist was basically the same as the night/ show before. i will never get tired of hyperpower --> TBOTE. or heresy.

TR thanked the promoter for getting the show there and the lovesong for opening. there wasnt that much talking.



performance wise the band wasnt that much different from korea. the crowd was shit and this put a huge dent in the show for me. like the venue, if the city doesnt get a show that often people dont know how to behave. there was a lot of unecessary pushing at the front and we must have had the entire hk chapter of the twiggy ramirez fan club behind us. ironically enough, the kid behind me by the end knew the joy divison song more than he knew any nin stuff.

the nin dot com photo of "hk fans" made us laugh since its a picture of a bunch of foreigners in the front row. thanks to the person who called us ugly in the comments, complement accepted.

getting home from this show was such a headache. no taxis would take anyone who wasnt going to kowloon/ hk island. we had to go back to the airport and find the hotel bus from there. i should have just gone and checked in the the flight since i was back at the airport in 6 hours anyways.

nine inch nails in korea: this was the best show id been to in, uh.. 4 months.

thanks to the japanese girls for asking for a fan club entrance, we were let in early. and were lucky enough to get a meet and greet from the band. they all seemed to be in very good moods right before the show.. although, imo, they are always very friendly.

hyperpower --> TBOTE was great, this is my favourite opener. it also works well because the band comes on stage first then everyone can scream extra loud when trent rocks up to start the second song. heresy continued to build up a lot of energy in the crowd.

i love the songs that are played with the screen down. me, im not is good and the great destroyer is better. the lighting is excellent. complete with the screaming slave tag, nice addition. during this song its fun to watch ally and aaron, who keep looking over at each other to see what the other is doing. it looks fun.

eraser and only played from behind the screens are better than i thought they would be. the lighting is dark and moody enough that you can still see through the screen when they want you too, while tracing out some interesting patterns and colours. the stage is lit enough such that the screen is transparent for only, during the chorus when they jump, but darkened or filled with red most of the rest of the time. .. the screen goes up towards the end of the song.

so, why does trent have on a white shirt during only but put the sweaty green jacket back on when the song is over? ;-)

jeordie completely went off during down in it. the tie flailing everywhere.

aaron was in the crowd during head like a hole. was doing his usual manic running around on stage. then from the back of jeordie's side he ran up and dove towards me. the whole time im thinking.. dont land on my head. the man got some distance and he was way in the crowd until he got pulled back out.

wasnt expecting hurt to close the show after HLAH.. nice ending and the crowd was respectful and sang along. screen back down with green and blue floaty lights until the rest of the band joins in the song.

overall the crowd wasnt bad, despite getting the worst bruising at this show. the venue was set up with a t-bar/ break down the center of the barricade to stop too much shoving to the center. all the crowd surfers were americans.. i was told they all came from the army base, since the US has a huge one in the middle of seoul.

the venue staff did a pretty decent job. you can tell that they dont host events like this that often. the security people were all in shirts and ties. i thought this was a respectful asian cultural thing- not exactly what i am used to seeing in canada/usa/australia.

this is pretty much a copy and paste of my post elsewhere.. i really like these photos so everyone must see them. i had to resize them all and put my name on them which took more time than i like to spend on things.

the 3rd night, krystie said to me after the show "whos the guitarist? he's awesome."

scroll through them fast to get the full spastic effect of his movements/ stomping/ twirling of guitar ;-)

nine inch nails was really fun. sunday was okay. monday was awesome, incredible. everyone was so full of energy. last night they only repeated 5 songs from the night before, capital g was one of them which was fine since it only debuted on sunday night. hyperpower was another, again fine, anything that puts josh freese on display is great. ehh, maybe more later, photos for now.


rob sheridan's photo from nin dot com.

edit: okay apparently i am retarded and cant read. this was the 3rd night photo not the second night, as i originally thought, when i started in the center and ended up left of jeordie. now i changed the photo.

my photos from last night...

TR

J

Mr Buddyhead

TR