Day 8: Te Whanganui-a-Tara, pt. 2
Welcome
Yesterday we played our final show of the Expert in a Dying Field touring cycle.
I awoke to another fine day in Te Whanganui a Tara. Birds spoke loudly from the bush behind our accommodation and the sounds of jets and propellors drifted across the breeze from the not-too-distant airport. My stomach cried out to me.
“Food!” it said.
“Caffeine!” said my brain.
Tristan and Anthony were at a café around the corner so I headed over to meet them, ordering a small coffee with frothed milk, hot but not steaming hot, and a far cry from black, the way I prefer it. My final breakfast of the tour came from the Hataitai Hot Bread Shop, just a few doors down from the café at which we were seated. The meat pie is New Zealand’s top food according to the website tasteatlas.com, closely edging out Sausage Sizzle at number two, and Hokey Pokey Ice Cream at number three, both of which I would have been fine options for my meal had they presented themselves conveniently. Instead I browsed the heated food cabinet of the bakery and chose a steak & cheese pie, carrying it back to eat at our table, basking in sunlight while enjoying this charming hillside suburb of Wellington.
Our proximity to Mount Victoria made it very convenient for me to do my favourite Wellington run, a route called the Southern Walkway that hops along the various hilltops between Oriental Bay in the central city and Island Bay on the southern coastline. The terrain is varied and employs footpaths, stairs, sports fields, and mountain bike trails to carry you past some of the best views you will get of the capital. There is plenty of elevation to be gained along the way and upon reaching the Mount Albert lookout these acquired metres of height paid dividends with a breathtaking view out across Te Moana-o-Raukawa, the mighty peaks of Manakau and Tapuae-O-Ueneku just visible over 100km distant.
We each had our free time to enjoy in this part of the day and while I was jogging Tristan was visiting the workshop of a local drummer and cymbal smith by the name of Corey Champion. Gabe had tasked himself with spending $200 on a seafood lunch and set out with Anthony as his chaperone, full of excitement and bluster. Liz and Jon went out for what sounded like a thoroughly delightful lunch, declining the chance to eat themselves into a stupor. At the end of the afternoon we reconvened at the venue. Tristan had returned empty handed, not a single new cymbal to add to his case. Gabe returned with a belly full of crab and shellfish, happy and groaning, ready to spend the next few hours in a food coma.
There wasn’t much to do in soundcheck save for testing the replacement amp that had been delivered after Jonathan’s furious fingers destroyed one of the Fenders halfway through last night’s show. Our confidence was high for our second Wellington show and so we played through a few songs for fun while Gabe lay on the floor and listened, not feeling the need to make any changes, letting his body prioritise its energy needs which were focused around his digestive system.
Several hours passed, the Dominion Museum Building falling first into darkness, and then into floodlit glory as various beams lit up the details of the stone columns and friezes. There were fifteen minutes remaining in the hour of seven when the four members of Sure Boy strummed their first chords, kicking off what was to be a memorable opening set. I slipped out to watch and the room was already feeling full, the Beths fans of the city of Wellington keen to disprove the stereotype of tardy New Zealand concert-goer. Or perhaps it’s just an Auckland thing, I don’t wish to sling mud at the fine citizens of the capital.
This quartet of self-professed mum rockers had grown up since 2022 when we last played together and you could feel the confidence and cohesion that comes from trucking away year after year at gigs, tours, and rehearsals. Certainly they seemed to be welcomed as hometown heroes and there were many people around me dancing and loudly singing along.
For the final time in the Expert in a Dying Field tour cycle Hannah Aperol, Paris Duvet, Geoff Haggis, and Nixon Steakford prepared the stage, laying out the pedal boards, distributing setlists, checking microphones, and tuning each instrument to within a Hertz of its life. Gabe spoke through his microphone at the mixing desk and the words carried along lengths of wire to set of radio transmitters and sent into our in ear monitors. It was the green light. We were declared show-ready. The walk down from our green room was a long one, four stories of stairs to the bottom level of the building and then through a network of university classrooms and corridors that must have run beneath the Great Hall a secret passage to keep our movements hidden from the audience until we could surprise them by appearing on the stage. The magic worked and we were cheered by the crowd when we appeared from behind the curtain, bursting into a sudden existence in their fields of vision and then bursting straight into our first song.
We gave it everything for this final set of the tour and the evening was kind to us - a beautiful, supportive crowd to perform to, a nice sounding stage, and a great sounding venue. Jon had done the numbers earlier in the day and this was our 193rd show since we had started performing songs from this record. That’s a lot of nights on stage, a lot of downstrokes executed, a lot of soundchecks, a lot of flights and drives, and a great many days away from home. It also means a great number of people supported us along the way – everyone who listened to EIADF and came to our shows, our managers Jake and Apple, and our partners, whanau, and friends who make us want to come home so badly.
Thanks to all the breakfasts that made this last three years possible.
I’m not sure when we’ll be on the road again but feel free to reach out to breakfastandtravelupdates@breakfastandtravelupdates.com if you badly need to read the fresh yield of my keystrokes.
Ben