Posts by Simon Grigg
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The lowered lighting and sound-tower speaker-jumping during the intro to Station to Station confounded the sense of scale
Yeah it seemed to go on forever..that wonderful intro, then, as he came on the sun set behind him and those neon strips behind him lit up. Ohhhh....
At least I think that's how it went.....
Best Western Springs ever, IMO (not that I've suffered one for many a year).
I have a couple of other stories about DB on that tour too, but a forum like this likely isn't the best place to share them.
Then again, substances may well have enhanced the experience.
Marley is mostly more of a haze than Bowie sadly but the biggest blur was the bloody Doobie Bros (yes, yes I know) circa 75. I feel asleep 1 song in, and woke in the encore thinking it was still he same song, until someone pointed out it was time to go.
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The internet penetration there is growing very rapidly, on account of mobile devices
which is even more surprising when one considers both the appalling speeds and ludicrous prices that the self protecting elite, those 1 or 2% that control everything here & who own the networks, extract from users. Nuts. Fancy paying US$1200 for an iPhone then US$500 a month after that for data? That's the sort of package many Indonesians are tied to.
Bangkok this week though, True are advertising a Blackberry 8000 (which, seems to dominate SEA's Smartphone market) for about NZ$700, with a $20 a month unlimited data package.
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On the two occasions I saw him perform, he looked like a fucker who wouldn't come out for encores.
78 at Western Springs he did a mean Stay & Hang on to Yourself as encores if memory is correct. Mind you, the state I, and pretty much anyone else I knew, was in, most anything would've sounded pretty mean...
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I’ll be happy if I look like that at his age.
yeah, but he's never, in some 40 odd years, looked puffy. The shots that did the rounds after that première fuelled quite some speculation at the time that he was on medication for what has been an ongoing problem with his ticker including at least one heart attack.
If you look back at the shots even 3-4 years back, it's quite a change.
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David Bowie at BDO? Yes please please please please please please!
It may happen but it would surprise a lot of people as he's been technically retired for about 4 years due to his ongoing health issues, apart from the odd guest appearance on record and screen. Last album was in 2003, and his last live show in 2005.
He looks less than stellar here
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The main way London differs from both NZ and Ozzie cities is simply the hugeness of it.
there are other ways..the endless grey smack filled council estates come to mind.
And a week after I arrived in London I was talking to a NZ friend's UK boyfriend. He worked at the MOD and was, so I understood, quite good at his job. He told me though that he planned to quit the job as he'd gone as far up the ranks as he could, having not gone to the correct school. It was an unspoken barrier but a barrier nevertheless.
Those sorts of stories were similar to others I encountered over my years in the UK.
It's the one huge difference, there is an us and them (and I don't mean colonials..we're another class).
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Well having now spent a couple of years in London I have to say that from the start it has not felt substantially different from back home.
try moving to Newcastle....
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What is wrong with 8pm, FFS?
Went and saw a DJ in Bangkok last Saturday night (Diplo, and yes he was fantastic thanks, even if I was the sad old guy at at the end of the bar, which I'm used to now but refuse to stop listening) and he was on at 11.30pm..none of yer 3am Auckland headliners.. the place was going nuts by midnight... and we were home by 2am.
I kinda enjoyed the next day.
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and most of the ex-pats in Australia are dicks
Not true, some of my best buddies blah, blah....
But I'm also of the opinion that moving to Australia, at least to Melbourne, Brissie or Sydney is more like moving from the lower half of the North Island to the Northern half, and applying the descriptor expat is a wee bit of a stretch. The cultural DNA is pretty close, and the rules are pretty much the same, albeit a bit rougher around the edges in Oz.
Whereas, even in our fellow English speaking first world countries further afield there are hefty adjustments to be made in the day to day mindset (we antipodeans are quite unlike the English as much as we fool ourselves otherwise..although we do like their telly...).
And then, of course, one gets to Asia and nothing you've learnt in your years to date is of any use whatsoever.
What I miss, people aside? Piha and wine mostly.
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Simon, I would have thought that maintaining two days worth of anything other than Bintang would be difficult in Bali. You have my sympathy!
Indeed, it's a bloody desert out there and getting worse, unless you enjoy Chilean paintstripper at $70 a bottle. Which, blissfully, is why I'm in Bangkok as I type enjoying Sav Blanc, Singha, and Stella Artois all at rather good prices.