G’day mate and welcome to Brisbane. It’s Australia and it’s pretty much what you expect; it’s big, it’s hot, the people are friendly and they drive utes. Like most places in Australia it’s not steeped in history so there’s not much you need to know about Brisbane except it’s about 150 years old and it was named after a Scotsman called Sir Thomas Brisbane who pretty much ran tings back in the day.
We’re staying in the financial district which looks very much like any other corporate metropolis, the roads are laid out on a US grid system and there’s skyscrapers everywhere so it looks and feels like a less gritty version of New York. It’s a British colony that takes it’s lead from the US in many of its ways; as IQ put it “if the UK and the US had sex and got pregnant, this is what their baby would look like”. From out of the mouth of babes…
We’ve just landed after 24 hours in the air so our body clocks have gone awry, it’s 8am here and we’ve all had ample sleep but our brains are telling us it’s time for bed. We’re staying in a sweet hotel and today’s a day off so it’s an opportunity to acclimatise, relax but not sleep, bully the body and brain into working 12 hours ahead.
We’ve wandered around, bought some food, enjoyed the sun and done some shopping.
You see what I mean about it looking like New York? The blond goon in the middle who could be a hitman from the Bronx called Billy Bullits or something? Yeah, that’s Green.
For me, the most exciting thing about being in Australia aside from the gigs, work, friends, booze, sun, money, power and late nights, is definitely the wildlife. Even in downtown Brisbane you see weird shit like this here Oris. And if you go to a proper park then you see things like this just sat there enjoying the sun.
Everything has been a bit of a blur since we’ve arrived. I tried to get some culture and headed to the modern art museum but it was full of school parties.
These were aboriginal carved dogs, kind of like totems I guess. I couldn’t help hoping they’d come alive in some Jumanji type way and attack the school children.
Alas that didn’t happen. Brisbane, your modern art gallery sucks and it’s full of children. Hardly exciting stuff I know, but sometimes you need some calm before you bring the storm. Speaking of which, our first gig was in this beautiful outdoor arena and, despite a couple of tech issues, it went down pretty well. RAAI is climbing up the charts here and it was crazy to see an Aussie audience singing along.
I’m late for my hotel check out so I best round this up. Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the gig, I’ll try to write more in Perth to make up for this shoddy post.
That’s Q’s finger, I think he’s saying Fuck You to jetlag or the fact that those tequilas he just bought cost 18 dollars each.