Day 9: Melbourne
Welcome
Yesterday we flew to Victoria, the education state, to play at Melbourne’s Laneway.
Slightly more than half of a night’s sleep was achieved before we left our hotel and drove to Adelaide Airport. It took a while to check-in our fifteen pieces of baggage, as it sometimes does depending on who is working at the counter. The airport was pleasantly quiet though and we made it to the gate with an hour up our sleeves.
Jon’s pedal board seems to be an easy target for the x-ray machines and yesterday it was selected for a visual inspection. In recognition of the inconvenience that he so frequently suffers I have awarded Jon 100 sympathy boints.
The bathrooms at Adelaide airport think they are entering the space age and have installed these huge mirrors that have taps, soap dispensers, and hand dryers inside them. These things are such a stupid waste of my time. The water never comes out where I expect it and I can’t make the soap trigger at the right time. Sensor operated faucets have been around for such a long time that it’s baffling to see one that is so incredibly inept. For this disappointing functionality the Adelaide Airport Bathroom Mirror Hand-Cleaning System is penalized 20,000 boints. I’m also issuing a strong warning to that system made by Dyson which tries to implement a hand dryer into a faucet and you just end up blowing air onto your soapy hands.
The breakfast options in the departure area were all fairly bleak. I ended up eating a veggie pasty from Muffin Break.
It was a fairly short and pleasant flight to Melbourne. The view out my window dredged up a childhood memory from when I flew in an airliner for the first time and I gazed outside and thought the clouds were made of snow.
After landing an hour late we made haste to get to the festival site. The back area of Melbourne’s Laneway was completely disorganised. There were a labyrinth of roads with no signage and none of the traffic management people knew where anything was. Thankfully for us Gabe had arrived early and had made us a map to help us find our stage – an well-earned 500 boints for that man.
Gabe showing us his Holden car.
We needed caffeine and we needed food. We found out that the artist area was a 10 minute drive from our stage but no one knew which direction and supposedly you needed to get a shuttle. I purchased a round of iced coffees and sugary snacks from a vendor and earned a quick 400 boints for bouncing everyone’s energy levels.
These iced coffees made us play great. Easily our best show of the run. What a discovery we had just made.
Look at this sign that our book-keeper Corey and his family made for us! And there we are playing in the background.
After our performance we were led to the artist area which turned out to be inside the grandstand of Flemington Raceway – where the Melbourne Cup takes place. The festival grounds are directly adjacent to the racetrack and easily accessible by the trainline that services the racecourse.
The view from the artist area inside Flemington’s grandstand.
Once we had lunched and rested it was time for Gabe to help me with a task that he was very good at – soddering. My cable had come down with a case of the brokens so Gabe brought along his extremely nice soddering iron to get me up and running again. I am now back to three working cables and I know how to properly sodder a jack. For his generosity with both his time and his knowledge Gabe is awarded 950 boints.
We left the festival nice and early so we could get a proper night’s sleep but not before I got to watch Girl in Red’s entire set. I can’t get over how good these guys are at rocking hard.
