A Day At The Races, And Many Nights At The Concerts

Think think think!! What did I do in November??? Ah yes, Derby Day! November is the time of the spring racing carnival in Victoria. A number of horse races, the grandest of these being the Melbourne Cup race, which is so important it is a public holiday in Melbourne. Almost as popular is the Victoria Derby, which is called Derby Day. I've never been to the Melbourne Cup, but this was my second time to Derby Day. I've been told its more fun.

What do people do at the races? Everyone dresses in their Sunday best, the men in the finest suits, and the women in dresses and hats or feathers in their hair, and then proceed to get completely drunk on champagne, beer and/or wine. Some of these people watch the horses run and place bets. As you can see, it's loads of fun.

This time around, it promised to be better than my previous time. A colleague of mine had organised a marquee, with supposedly unlimited quantities of alcohol, and even a significant amount of food. I'd invited my housemate along, and the both of us had some breakfast, and donned our suits, and headed off. My colleague had invited about 30 people most of them from my work, so there were a lot of people I knew and it was good fun. We got to the marquee at about 11.30 am to find out that the guy had really done a good job organising everything. It was a really nice, sunny day, and pretty soon, I was about 5 beers down and feeling extremely good, in spite of the fact that I had lost about 30 bucks betting. Shortly after, I lost count of the beers.

From then on, it was all a blur of beer, sun, random conversation, and the occasional race. Now here comes the major embarrassing moment. I've been wondering a long time whether to write about this or not, and finally said, "Fuck It!". Some people know about this anyway. It's embarrassing only for me. And all of you will find it hilarious.

So there I was, many beers later, around 4 in the afternoon, and wanting to pee. Being a race ground, the loos were all these makeshift port-a-loos all set up, and one had to trek a fair bit to get to the nearest one. And once you got there, there was a long (and I mean LONG) queue. So anyway, I got to the loo and was waiting my turn, when I spotted my housemate there. He had just finished, and so he decided to hang around and wait for me. Now it's my turn. So I go to the urinal, pull out the, ahem, wienerschnitzel, and start to pee. Then, (wait for it), in mid-urination, I fell asleep! (Well, technically, I didn't fall.... I just stood there holding Mr. Johnson).

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking that's impossible. Well, it's true. What can I say? I was really really drunk. And besides, why would I make up something like this anyway?

This is when the people behind me started getting restless, and asked me to hurry up. Then another guy beside me said "Hey Man, this bald guy is asleep! He's fucking sleeping".

And my housemate goes, "No mate, he's still peeing".

And the other guy says, "Mate! He's not peeing! He's fucking asleep!"

At this point, I was woken up. Everyone was laughing and I didn't really care. My housemate dragged me out of the loo, and he was concerned at the start, but seeing I was OK, his concern gave way to total amusement, and he was laughing his ass off. We walked back to the marquee, and I didn't even bother telling him to shut up. I knew, he would tell everyone at some point anyway.

So, we went back and I had another beer. I was wide awake by then, and I needed a drink. Pretty soon, I had to pee. I didn't really manage to go the last time. So I went back again to the loo again, and this time I didn't sleep. In fact, I think I made sure everyone in the loo knew I was peeing. I said something along the lines of, "Look at me, motherfuckers, I'm peeing. I'M PEEING! Who's your daddy now?". Everyone thought that the short brown bald guy was nuts. But they were all drunk, so no one really cared too much.

OK, that was it. Hope you enjoyed that. The races got over by about 6PM, and the majority of the gang went to the city to various pubs and continued drinking ourselves silly. To my credit, I continued drinking till about 2AM at night. Amazing what a little power nap in the loo can do.

That was the races. Now on to the concerts. November was a glorious month for concerts. I'd already talked about one, Sasha & Digweed, in an earlier post. Sasha & Digweed is not really my kind of concert. Having said that, I've seen Sasha once before, and at both these concerts, I had an awesome time. I'd probably go again.

My kind of concert. There were plenty of these in November. First up, Billy Joel. A good friend of mine, Kartik, once commented that he ranked Billy Joel as one of the best concerts he's been to, and he's been to a few. I now know what he was talking about. Billy was awesome! He rocked.

The defining moment in the concert, funnily enough, was not when Billy Joel was singing. He took the backseat and played the guitar while a roadie of his (named 'Chainsaw'!) got up on stage and sang 'Highway To Hell'. Now when you sing an AC/DC classic to a Melbourne crowd, you're going to win a lot of friends. Chainsaw stole the show that night, and the entire crowd was on their feet. Pretty cool of Billy to do that though.

A week after Billy Joel was a series of 3 consecutive nights of 3 concerts. Pearl Jam. I almost didn't go for this one. I used to listen to a lot of Pearl Jam in high school and uni, but I hadn't heard any of the new stuff. But I knew some friends of mine were going, so I was pretty excited about it. We met up for a few drinks before the concert and set off. It was an awesome concert, and it was one of those concerts where I didn't feel out of place by being one of the youngest in the crowd of old people (this is what happens when you like classic rock and see bands like the Stones and Tull in concert). Eddie was wasted by the end of the concert, and even had a fall, but he kept on singing. I was on my feet all through the concert singing along to Rearviewmirror and Jeremy and Alive. They finished off with a couple of covers (MC5's Kick Out The Jams and Neil Young's Rocking In the Free World), playing with the lights on, and ending with some drunken games on stage. Good fun.

Defining moment - I saw this old lady (possibly Indian, because I could swear she had a 'bindi' on her forehead) seated two rows in front of me. When I say old, I mean about 45-50. Remember what i was saying about being out of place. Now she looked out of place. I thought maybe she was there chaperoning her kid or something, because I noticed a couple of young kids next to her. But no, it became pretty obvious that she was by herself, and she seemed to having an awesome time, clicking snaps of Eddie, and jumping up and down to Pearl Jam's latest along with the best of the grungy teens. Amused me no end, and made me feel good about life in general. Wherever you are, lady, keep on rocking!

The next concert was the Pink Floyd Experience, a Kiwi Pink Floyd tribute band. I went for it assuming that if you're making a living singing someone else's songs, you'd have to be pretty damn good at it, perhaps even better than the original. Besides, I don't think Pink Floyd is touring anytime soon (Well, Roger Waters is, which is the next best thing, but not Pink Floyd).
These guys didn't disappoint. They played 'Dark Side Of The Moon' and 'The Wall' in entirety. And they had all the sound, lights and theatrics to go with it. It was like watching a play, with Pink Floyd playing the soundtrack. It was awesome. The hip-flask of whisky helped make it complete.

Defining moment - They built an entire fucking wall, brick by thermocol brick, on stage! And then they tore it down. Now you have to admit that's pretty cool!

And then, the grand finale, U2. What can I say? Much awaited, much hyped, much talked about, much preparation. We met at Penny Lane's place beforehand for drinks and food, and to familiarise ourselves with some U2 songs, just in case we missed out in the last couple of decades. We thought about going early so we could get a good spot. We had general admission standing tickets, which in my opinion is the only way to see a concert. But then we heard that some people had already queued up since 7 in the morning to get good spots, so we decided to have as many drinks as we could and get there just in time for the concert. Turned out to be a good move. Found some spots relatively easily. Inspired by the whisky the night before, I decided to smuggle some hip flasks (among other things) into the concert, turning a deaf ear to the warnings of the rest of the bunch who said I'd get caught. I didn't get caught, and the whisky was consumed by all.

Anyway, the concert was BIG! It was in the Telstradome, probably the biggest venue Melbourne has to offer. I hadn't been to a concert there before, so it was quite exciting. Kanye West opened. I only knew one song. All I could think of Him was that he was sweating a lot. When U2 came on, I was actually at the bar buying some beer. Managed to find my way back to the gang, and was all set for a good show. I was hoping they would play some of their old songs. They did! I was hoping The Edge would sing. That was asking for too much!

Defining moment - I don't think there was one single moment that stood out, apart from when I carried girls on my shoulders. The show, simply put, was awesome! It just felt really good to be standing in a big crowd, hip-flask in my pocket, drink in my hand, passing a joint around, chick on my back, listening to U2.

I guess writing about concerts is a bit of a waste. You've really got to experience it firsthand.

And that's it for November.