The best merch table of all time. Photo by Claire. On Flickr.
BRISBANE: We said goodbye to A.I.H. in Perth and took a couple planes to get back to Brisbane to meet up with Charlie, a.k.a. Panther, our new tourmate for 3 more shows in Australia, and 4 in New Zealand. Again, thanks so much to Andy and the Wolfgang crew for setting us up and taking us all around the place. Check out this photo from the Wolfgang show in Brisbane. BOOM! Before the show we did a photo shoot for the aforementioned UV Magazine for a YACHT/Panther feature they're doing in the next issue. We wore silly clothes.
SYDNEY: Charlie is an amazing dude. He invented one of my favorite jokes of recent times called "checking my sites." This joke is fairly subtle and may or may not be funny to you, dear reader, but hear me out... So you're on tour, or on vacation, or traveling, or just away from your computer, right? Now, you'd like to get back to the computer to conduct whatever business, leisure, or general computer usage you need to do, right? No one wants to say "I need to use the computer" or "I need to use the internet" or "I have some computer stuff I need to do." NO! Charlie's constant usage of "I need to check my sites" hasn't stopped being funny to me, but has also just become a regular part of my vocabulary. OK, enough explaining, I gotta go check my sites. SEE YA!
The highlight of the show for me was the merch table zone me, Charlie, and Claire made. For some reason the Australian label didn't have any of Charlie's albums even though they're FROM Sydney, so he just had t-shirts to sell. I thought it would be a good idea to fill up the rest of the table with little notes selling non-material goods like free handshakes, hugs, and relationship advice. You see the photo up there, you get it! My second highlight was excessively using the fog machine. I didn't realize how much fun is to be had picking those things up and spraying the stage and audience with a semi-harmless, nearly non-toxic fog.
MELBOURNE: You people are crazy. The show put on by US vs THEM was out of control. Seemingly everyone was drunk, jumping up on stage to either dance or make out, and there was even one angry looking man that kept insisting that he should have the mic so he could sing a Kenny Loggins song. I'm all for Kenny Loggins, but this dude looked like he was owed this experience and I was somehow ruining his life if I didn't give him the microphone immediately. Maybe this was actually the case. Sir, I'm sorry for ruining your life. Check out this animated GIF flyer from the show.
Thanks so much to everyone that saw me first with Architecture in Helsinki, then came back for more with Panther. Australia is full of good looking and big hearted people! Truly, thanks for everything!
Truly,
Jona
Where are you off to next Jona? And when are you coming back to Brisbane? I saw you're playing Melbourne/Sydney for Parklife but no Brisbane gig. Wah!
ha! good audience dances in there.
and charlie with no merch on tour once again!