Girl Goes Gigging

This morning I got up and pottered about the house, drinking tea and chatting to Sarah before she went to uni. I watched tv for a bit and spent the rest of the day clicking about on my computer.

Later in the afternoon, Sarah came back from uni and we chatted for a bit and watched the news. I then went for a wander down to Maccas and spent a fair while online, before realising the time and deciding to grab some dinner from KFC next door!

Once back at the house, I got changed and made my way back out again to get a tram to the city, thankfully I managed to arrive at the tram stop just in time, then swapped to a different tram once I had arrived in the city centre, to get a tram out to Thornbury. I managed to sit next to a slightly scary bogan who was trying to eat some form of sandwich but kept on falling asleep, dropping bits of the sandwich in the process, then toppling over in his sleep, thus waking up, then picking up the bits of dropped sandwich from the floor and eating them. This cycle continued and I was rather concerned I would end up with a smelly bogan or bit of greasy sandwich in my lap! Thankfully, he got off and my worries were over! I kept a close eye on the tram stops and eventually came to the required one where I hopped off and made my way to The Prague, a gig venue where Vinny’s band, The Grain, was playing. I had happened to call Vinny earlier in the day to see how he was and possibly arrange to meet up with him and Vars for a drink, when I spoke to him I discovered he was going to be playing tonight, so had arranged to go and see the gig.

I found Vinny outside with a couple of his friends, we chatted for a bit and then went inside, where he introduced me to a few more of his friends. We had a drink and watched one of the bands playing; they were quite good, but we ended up talking about New Zealand more than listening to the band – being Aussies, obviously Vinny’s friends were very keen to bag New Zealand! The venue itself was really cool; purpose built for gigs, with red walls and lots of tables and comfy chairs, as well as a dance floor and stage.

A little later, Vars arrived and I then chatted to her and a couple more people who turned up; all friends of Vinny and the other members of the band. We carried on drinking, chatting and listening to the band. I was fascinated by a motorbike on the wall of the venue – it had a metal skeleton as the chassis! I think the people sat in front of the bike must have thought I was staring at them, but actually I just found the bike so intriguing! Some of Vinny’s work colleagues had come to see him and were really clueless as to what to expect, so I tried to give them the low down on what it was going to be like, from what I remembered from the last (and first) time I’d seen them play in March.

When the time came, The Grain took to the stage. We all got up and watched the set; it was as animated as ever and made us all bop about! I think Vinny’s colleagues were quite surprised by the music, but seemed to enjoy it. Vars danced at the front, whilst I stood and styled it out at the side! After the set, we all carried on chatting, discussing the music, and having a few more beers. I then decided to switch to Bundy & Coke, which meant that soon I was a bit more caffeine fuelled!

My caffeine injection led to dancing with Vars and a few bogans on the dance floor, before I skulked off back to the group, as the bogans had been a bit scarier than I had expected! Thankfully I managed to avoid being dragged back to the dance floor by the bogans, when the last band started. They turned out to be even scarier than the bogans – visually they looked like a bunch of hard core skinheads and their music was utterly inaudible with so many profanities, it was impossible to tell what they were singing/shouting about! They did have a very good idea though; before each song they explained what the song was about and to be fair, their descriptions seemed to suggest their songs consisted of deep, meaningful social commentaries, however it was not possible to confirm whether or not they were indeed singing songs to that effect!

After the gig was over, a few of us decided to head to another bar for a bit of a change of scenery, so we walked a little way down the road to a place called Kitty Somerset. It was a cocktail bar, so having perused the menu, I decided that my cocktail of choice was Mai Tai which turned out to be a very good selection. I whiled away several hours in there, chatting away and not noticing the time passing. The main focus of our discussions were a guy called Leon and somehow I renamed him Dr Sputnik, after a rather comedic and epic failure on my part in remembering the name of Sonic the Hedgehog’s arch nemesis (Dr Robotnik). This caused much amusement and I believe Leon is henceforth actually going to call himself Dr Sputnik!

We moved on again for more drinks and the time warp continued to suck me in so much so that before I knew it, the birds were singing!