fascinating book

i've just finished reading a fascinating book called 'no god but God: the origins, evolution and future of islam' by reza aslan. i've written a bit about the book over on my review blog, intraspace.

the review. check it.

30th

my 30th birthday party went down last weekend. it really went off and i think everyone had a good time.

i set up fluorescent tube lights in the trees as a light installation that lit half the lawn. we also strung up lights in the garage which was cleared to put the food tables in.

in the lounge i set up an exhibition of some of my artwork, printed up as A3 and A2 posters, and had a slide show of my photography on the computer screen.

from an artistic perspective it was a complete 'safe little world' production - having trialled a few things here, i hope one day i'll get to stage a bigger installation.

thanks to everyone who came to the party and to those that helped out with various stuff.

go here for flickr set that shows the shenanigans at the party.

the greatest game ever...

jonathan emailed me from australia yesterday to see if i thought that nz's victory over australia in hamilton was the greatest game of cricket i'd ever seen...

on tuesday i drove over to hamilton in my father-in-law's little green barina to go to the cricket with jamie. nz had already secured a historic series victory over australia with their wins in auckland and wellington in the days before. so i was off to see if we could do the impossible - make a clean sweep of the series. of course, when jamie and i got our tickets months ago we had no idea that this would be the scenario.

in the event, australia batted first and scored an enormous total - 346 - featuring a history-making innings of 181 n.o. from matthew hayden. this set nz a target well beyond anything that has ever been accomplished in nz before. nz lost early wickets to be 4-41 at one stage - not a dream start. but incredibly, the remaining batters got up and we defeated australia in the final over. craig macmillan's 117 was something special. the highlight of the game was when brendan mccallum hit a 6 off the first ball of the final over - giving nz 5 balls to score just 1 run - which we did.

the crowd went absolutely ape - there was dancing and hugging and kissing everywhere. 3-0 in the series.

when nz were 4 wickets down, i text aaron to see what score he thought we'd get - 249 all out he said. jamie thought 300. i thought 180. i can't vouch for the other guys, but the reason i thought we'd only get to 180 is that when you demoralise a nz cricket team they often give up. well, at least, they used to. this season we have seen a nz team that doesn't give up. in the game early in the season where nz got thumped by sri lanka, craig macmillan refused to quit - i wonder if that was a turning point? i thought to myself then - if this team's form catches up with their new determination, we're going to be good. i think this latest series is the fruition of that. we are now watching a nz team that is playing like an australian team and beating them at their own game.

needless to say, nzers are celebrating this victory. it means a tremendous amount to us - every time nz scores a big sporting victory we know that we are a nation of only 4 million people that has taken down a giant. when we beat australia in the cricket, one reason we celebrate so hard is because of their perceived arrogance. nzers don't like arrogance and we harbour a belief that if you get too cocky your fall is around the corner. nzers like to celebrate those falls... at the beginning of the commonwealth bank series in australia (a tri-series between australia, nz and england), australia made comments to the effect that nz and england wouldn't provide any serious opposition and so they were setting goals against themselves - aiming to score 400 during the series. if that doesn't reek of arrogance i don't know what does. as far as nzers are concerned australia deserved to lose.

at the end of the game i secretly took a photo of every fan in an aussie jumper that came near me. i planned to post them on this blog with a little caption saying "disappointed aussie fans". when i got home and looked at the pictures, the looks on their faces were too sad and i couldn't bring myself to do it. one guy looked straight into the camera as i took the photo - it is actually quite heartbreaking... the formally invincible aussies have shown they have a weakness. having lost about 5 games this season, australian fans are beginning to know what it feels like to be a cricket fan the world over.

so, was tuesday night the greatest game i've ever seen? honestly, for me the best game was game one of this series - our 10 wicket victory over australia - a complete performance - catapaulting nz cricket into what i hope will be a new era.

pictures: jamie keeps hydrated in the hamilton sun; peter "two-metre peter" fulton fielding on the boundary; the lights on, nz batting and battling; victory - the black caps on a lap around the field.

album art

this image (click to see it full cd-size) is the first in a series i am doing for jamie strange's album cover... the album is coming out maybe end of this year... the artwork will have about 8 similarly themed images.

we are still playing around with the concept - but yeah. (the photo was taken at the top of mount maunganui - on slide film - scanned in on my film scanner. i did the outline figure in illustrator and then overlaid, rasterized and filled it in photoshop.)

on the headphones: 'homesick' by the finn brothers, from the album 'everyone is here'. www.finnbros.com

charleston

my grandmother was a very staunch christchurch woman - didn't take no nonsense, and didn't suffer fools gladly.

i remember one day when she was staying with us, i was giving her some lip about something, getting smart as teenagers do. when all of a sudden she looked me straight in the eye and said "yeah? well i'd like to see you do this:" right there in the middle of the lounge my 84 year old grandmother busted out a flawless charleston. i'm not sure what the charleston had to do with what we were talking about, but her response was definitive. and i never messed with her again.

for your viewing pleasure, he is some old footage of some guys doing a 1950s charleston set to daft punk...

music retreat

last weekend our church music team headed off to a farm outside of te awamutu for a retreat. anyway, here are some digi pics that i took when we got up at 6.30am...

for the full set of 12 images, head over to flickr and feel free to leave comments... here!

on the headphones: 'should i stay or should i go' by the clash, from the album 'singles'. www.theclashonline.com

redneck botox

did you know that for the oscars red carpet, some celebrities inject botox into their armpits to disable the sweat glands so that they don't get embarrassing stains on their designer frocks?

in other news: there is a website on the internet that will translate any web page into one of the following dialects: redneck, jive, cockney, elmer fudd, swedish chef, moron, pig latin or hacker.

entertainingly, if you click here, and then click the 'Dialectize!' button you will see the 'about' profile from my website translated into redneck.

click here to try a web page and dialect of your choosing.

on the stereo: 'first breath after coma' by explosions in the sky, from the album 'the earth is not a cold dead place'. www.explosionsinthesky.com

slapping seagal

another gem of a quote found amongst the news items on stuff.co.nz...

The martial arts expert [jean-claude van damme] insists he is a lover, not a fighter.

He said: "My last fight was more than 20 years ago. I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover. If somebody's going to speak bad about me, I will walk away.

"But if a guy like Steven Seagal slaps me once, I will slap him twice as hard. Life is full of violence."

what an aging martial arts expert who colours his hair and wears pink jackets looks like:

quality internet news content

you may have noticed from my posts that i read stuff.co.nz quite a bit. normally it is excellent.

but today i came across an article that was simply remarkable. it is about the unveiling of waxwork models of david beckham and posh spice in the usa.

the first reason it is remarkable is that it introduces two new words to the english language: "Tuesdady" and "Girlwife"... [note: the tuesdady error has been corrected since i first wrote this post]

"Americans got a closer look at Los Angeles-bound celebrity couple David and Victoria Beckham on Tuesdady..." and "New York's Madame Tussauds museum put on display figures of the soccer idol and his former Spice Girlwife..."

so there's some hip new lingo for you. but the article also contains this beautifully insightful quote from rebecca ho, 14, of new york (please disregard the way the sentence confuses the reader about who was wearing the evening gown):

"Others knew who the Beckhams were but were unimpressed by the sight of Posh and Becks in a fashionable tuxedo and green evening gown. 'I only know them because they are celebrities,' said Rebecca Ho, 14, of New York."

what plastic, or wax, celebrities look like:

confession

hmmm, my computer just downloaded and installed internet explorer 7.

i've been using firefox for quite a while now and it was vastly superior to the last version of explorer.

but i've been playing around with the new explorer for a few minutes and i quite like it - it seems to work quite quickly and i'm getting used to the interface - quite nice.

all this is a bit of a problem, because you're not supposed to like microsoft programs. what should i do?

how to write propaganda

i'm still learning how to write propaganda. "gasp" you say. "why does he want to know how to write propaganda?!" thing is, if you know how to write it, you can detect it. and here's a grey area for you: the line between "persuasive writing" and "propaganda".

so because i'm still learning, i won't tell you how. but today i came across this interview via one of my favourite blogs 'conscientious'. it's an interview with professional conservative spin doctor frank luntz. the full article is here (on salon.com). but this is a little taste...

Frank Luntz is a Republican word doctor who coaches conservatives to talk to Americans about "personalizing" Social Security instead of "privatizing" it. He urges them to promote "tax relief," not "tax cuts." Recently he recommended that "drilling for oil" be referred to as "exploring for energy," which goes down much more smoothly. Luntz is so reviled by environmentalists that one group has named an award after him for great achievements in doublespeak.

this is what a spin doctor looks like:

the 8 tribes of new zealand

came across this interesting insight into new zealand culture today. following is an extract from an article on stuff.co.nz about a book that has just been released in nz by two PR people, Jill Caldwell and Christopher Brown. '8 Tribes: The Hidden Classes of New Zealand' describes nz culture by grouping nzers into 8 stereotypes. the official website relating to the book is here (nicely done). brilliantly, you can fill out an online questionnaire and find out your tribe here. the full article that this excerpt is from is here...

EIGHT TRIBES: The hidden classes of New Zealand

THE NORTH SHORE TRIBE: Aspiring

The ambitious, hard-working, heavily mortgaged inhabitants of the great suburban jungle for whom keeping up appearances is fundamentally important. They survive in the jungle by constantly moving ahead, up through the ranks of job, car, house, street and suburb.
FOUND IN: Suburbs with concentrations of malls, nice cars and plasma TVs - especially north, east and central Auckland, north and west Christchurch, Tauranga, Hamilton.

THE GREY LYNN TRIBE: Cognoscenti

The highly educated intelligentsia who value ideas above material things and intellectualise every element of their lives. Their most prized possession is a painting by the artist of the moment, they frequent film festivals, secretly wish they had more gay and Maori friends, feel guilty about discussing property values and deep down are uneasy about their passion for rugby.
FOUND IN: Bookshops, cafes and former working-class suburbs with concentrations of renovated villas - especially Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, Pt Chevalier, Mt Victoria, St Albans, Otago Peninsula.

THE REMUERA TRIBE: Entitled

The round-vowelled children of privilege for whom breeding is the greatest virtue, manners really do make a difference, money shows class if it's old but is crass if it's new, and what school you went to defines the rest of your life.
FOUND IN: Leafy suburbs with concentrations of mansions, English gardens and private schools - especially Remuera, Epsom, Karori, Wadestown, Fendalton, Merivale, Maori Hill, Havelock North.

THE BALCLUTHA TRIBE: Staunch

The tribe of the Kiwi heartland, the provincial conservatives, who see themselves as a source of stability and commonsense - solid, reliable and down to earth, but also deceptively smart.
FOUND IN: Small towns, provincial cities and any other area with a concentration of sheep, cows, and utes.

THE RAGLAN TRIBE: Free-spirited

The independent spirits who value the ability to live a life according to their own priorities, not what the boss or society says is important. They can be maverick entrepreneurs, or hedonists, spiritual journeyers, fitness fanatics, adrenaline junkies and adventurers.
FOUND IN: Professions where freelancers predominate, trades where free agents are well paid. Living in city suburbs in the midst of renewal, coastal towns and suburbs, near ski fields and lakes, or in a remote Kiwi bach.

THE CUBA STREET TRIBE: Funky

The hipster tribe on the cutting edge of cool, where "new" is the greatest virtue, being labelled mainstream the greatest fear and self-expression the preoccupation. In the 1980s it was the vanguard of espresso, in the 1990s of body piercing and tattoos.
FOUND IN: Bohemian areas of our largest cities attending art schools and the coolest gigs.

THE OTARA TRIBE: Community

Urban, often immigrant, often Polynesian, community-minded people for whom family is paramount and church is likely to play a central social role. The sense of belonging is strong as is the pressure to "do the right thing" and uphold appearances. In our grandparents' generation, many working-class Catholics fitted this profile.
FOUND IN: Areas with concentrations of churches and state housing - especially south Auckland, Porirua, east Christchurch.

THE PAPATOETOE TRIBE: Unpretentious

Urban working people who revere physical prowess, don't trust anything intellectual, disdain "wankers" and are unwilling to think of themselves as better than their mates - the classic "state house and jug of beer" Kiwis.
FOUND IN: Suburbs and towns with concentrations of car yards, supermarkets and sports grounds - especially south and west Auckland, Hastings, Hutt Valley, south Christchurch, Tokoroa, Invercargill.

my tribe, according to my questionnaire results, is predominantly 'grey lynn' (no surprise there i guess), followed by 'cuba st' (cool), but then surprisingly, i am slightly more 'balclutha' than 'north shore'... something funny there. i would say that i would tend towards 'north shore' by birth - it would seem that life is eradicating that from me.

on the stereo: '0078h' by m83, from the album 'dead cities, red seas & lost ghosts'. www.ilovem83.com

horopito motors

on a wet mid-week day this week, lance and i set out from tauranga and headed south to horopito motors. located on the central plateau of new zealand's north island, horopito motors was the location for the 1981 new zealand film 'smash palace'. along the way, we stopped off at the whakapapa ski field on mount ruapehu. there was no snow as this is summer...

i can't begin to express what an impact the wrecker's yard had on us - it is astonishing in real life. like a kind of grave yard. but also the size of the place is mind-blowing. we took about 3 and half hours to get round it in drizzly rain.

for more photos, go to flickr

on the stereo: 'bathe in the river (featuring holly smith)' by the mt. raskil preservation society, from the 'no. 2' soundtrack.

realisation

so, the creative shenanigans continue. this is my latest piece (click to see it bigger, and sorry about the 'safe little world' watermark).

again, this is an idea i've had in the pipeline for ages.

i love technical / architectural drawing - especially when it has a retro aspect to it. last year i found a brilliant old book from the 1960s in a secondhand bookshop explaining the art of rendering with pen and ink. it has 166 illustrations, many of which i absolutely love.

the basis of my piece is an illustration out of that book. process was: (1) scan illustration (that involved unstitching the binding of the book to pull out the page spread, then 'mending' the crease down the centre in photoshop). (2) drop two of my original colour images into the picture. (3) distort the photo on the right so that it fitted the perspective of a frame that was already in the original picture. (4) scan in a picture frame from another part of the same book (there is no picture on that wall in the original). (5) fit the other photo to the newly scanned frame, and size and position the new frame and photo on the back wall. (6) tweak contrast. (7) add caption - made to look like the kind of caption you would find in the original book...

i named the piece 'realisation 1', but i could have called it 'visualisation 1' - the concept being that this is what my photography would look like on the walls of a 1960s office - 'realisation' being the 'realisation' of the concept that one day my pictures will be hanging on people's walls.

i won't go into the legitimacy of making use of someone else's illustration too much here. but suffice to say, i have left the original artist's signature at the bottom of the picture - i consider that he has provided me with an architectural context for my photographs. so i don't consider myself the artist of the entire work, any more than a photographer who takes a photograph of a building would consider himself or herself the architect.

on the headphones: 'swing your heartache' by young galaxy, from the 'swing your heartache ep'. here

incident at the motel

here is today (and yesterday)'s work. this is an idea that has been in the pipeline for about 2 years. i've always liked paper building models, and they occurred to me as a way to translate some of my 2d ideas into 3d. i found the pattern for this model on the internet for free about a year and a half ago. the idea was to take the model and add cartoon call-outs. i finally did this about 6 months ago. then i printed it out with the colour printer onto card. the other day i went and got some craft glue so i could put it together. i did that yesterday, and today i photographed it against a grey backdrop. i think it looks pretty cool.

the finished piece is called 'incident at the motel'. in effect, it is kind of a 3d cartoon.
















on the headphones: 'at the edge of the world you will still float' by telefon tel aviv, from the album 'map of what is effortless'. www.telefontelaviv.com

action man 2007

well here we are in 2007. i'm on holiday and i'm trying to do some creative stuff during my break. it's all a fine balancing act, because most of my creative stuff is computer-based and so is my work. so i'm trying not to spend too much time on the computer, as well as using the computer for me art.

to the left is a little piece i've recently completed using my action man as a model (the safe little world logo is a watermark - not on the original).

a bit about the process...

1. started with a digi photo of my action man
2. traced the outline and filled in detail in illustrator (creating an eps of the black lines) and coloured in photoshop (c. 5 hours)
3. vintagized - converted to cmyk and turned the colours into colour half-tone, then nudged them off register.
4. made the background yellowed newsprint colour (stole the base color off the website of the guy whose tutorial taught me how to do the half-tone stuff)
5. dirtied newsprint background using photoshop dirt brushes that i got off the net
6. found the butterflies while looking through the photoshop brushes (i don't know what they are doing on the 'finished' piece - but i thought they looked pretty cool - even though it is probably 'wrong' to use photoshop default brushes in artwork and design - and what deep significance butterflies have when placed beside a macho boy's toy, i'm not sure... perhaps because action man is striped of his battle fatigues, his gentler side is leaking out).

on the headphones: '7,4 (shoreline)' by broken social scene, from the album 'broken social scene'. here

space station

wow, just came across this brilliant image on stuff.co.nz from nasa. it shows astronauts working on the international space station. 400 kms below you can see the top of the south island and bottom of the north island of new zealand. read the story here.



















on the stereo: 'until dusk' by Frank LoCrasto, from the album 'when you're there'.

bob dylan

here's an advert i just got from aj bell. he and derek lind and some others have put together a band to play bob dylan's gospel stuff. they are performing at parachute 2007. but before that, they are doing a gig in hamilton. aj says,

Kia ora good people of Aotearoa...not doing anything on Tues night 12th December???...fancy a trip to the megatropolis of Hamilton for the debut of the Bob Dylan Electric Gospel Band??? ...all yours for $10 in the name of TearFund ...along with poet maestro Arthur Amon and Jervais-inspired stand up...once only opportunity to catch this performance outside of the 2007 Parachute Festival.

Yours from the deep part of the river
Andrew Bell

whoa, this should be really good. and as aj hints, it includes my esteemed compadres in the poetry revolution: arthur amon and also ross millar! (click the ad to see it a bit larger)


on the headphones: 'no woman, no cry' by bob marley, from the album 'live!' www.bobmarley.com

U2 pt2

this post follows my review of the concert - so read that first if you haven't yet (below).

if you have a look at the comments on the review, you will see one from ben who got a lot closer to the action than we were and was much more blown away by the experience. immediacy is definitely something you miss out on in a big concert unless you are up close. which is also the reason why jamie, in an email to me, said he wanted to see U2 play in a 1500 seat venue one day!

i found this excellent photo gallery at stuff.co.nz that gives a better taste of what the band is like up close.

and to further complexify the question about what bono meant when he said "Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true", anna pointed me back to this excerpt from the book 'bono on bono' which i read earlier this year (my review is here). in what bono says there seems to be no doubt that he believes that jesus is supremely true, and he even speaks against the idea that jesus was just one of many prophets... [edit: also read a comment from ben, which i have since added to the end of this post too - he may well be right]

Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.

Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep shit. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled… It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Assayas: That's a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?

Bono: No, it's not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you're expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we've been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had "King of the Jews" on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I'm not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that's farfetched…

Bono later says it all comes down to how we regard Jesus:

Bono: [I]f only we could be a bit more like Him, the world would be transformed …When I look at the Cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my shit and everybody else's. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was, or was He just a religious nut? And there it is, and that's the question. And no one can talk you into it or out of it.

[edit: ben's comment...]

hey man i might be wrong but the way i heard it was "Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - its true, Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - its true. all sons, all sons of abraham" then he went on about the middle east and how the 3 religions of christianity, judaism and islam all came from abraham and are all congregated in that part of the world and how they all need to get along. he sung something about "father abraham look at your sons" or something along those lines. i think the "Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true" is what some random christian person heard and spread it round so thats what you are expecting him to say. pretty sure thats not what bono is saying. doesn't make sense if he goes from saying "all true" to "all sons of abraham"

U2 auckland 2006

last night (friday) anna and i went to the long-awaited U2 concert at mt smart in auckland. i say "long-awaited" because i remember saying that U2 was my favourite band when i was 10 and this was the first time i have seen them live, and also "long-awaited" because they were supposed to come in march but had to postpone until november - that on top of a 12-year hiatus in touring to new zealand.

needless to say, i had hyped up the whole event quite a bit in my mind beforehand, so i was ripe for anti-climax. when we arrived in auckland i was able to witness a whole new side of my wife when she was suddenly overtaken with a brilliant obsession for seeing the members of the band outside of the concert environment. that obsession was greatly fueled by finding out that our hotel was 5 minutes away from the hyatt - where the band was rumoured to be staying.

we spent a total of about 4 and 1/2 hours standing outside the hyatt over two days, before being treated to a fleeting glimpse of adam clayton and larry mullen as they left for soundcheck on friday. i didn't get a decent photo - my one shot on my little point and shoot was blurry. it must have been the heat of the moment, because all my other photos that day were sharp...

that done we got in the car and headed for the venue - arriving finally (after getting a park) at about 4pm. there were no real queues so we splashed out on $45 tshirts.

the 5.30pm gate opening happened at about 6pm and i managed to 'smuggle' by camera in past an over-zealous security (they confiscated the plastic bottle tops off everyone's drink bottles... that is still a mystery - but as we had a plastic bottle, it caused a perfect diversion for my smuggling). i'm not sure how you were supposed to get into the famed 'ellipse' at the front of the stage, but we didn't get in there - we were about 15 metres from the front of the ellipse.

as is always the case at these things - our comfortable space was pretty quickly invaded by a more anti-social element. our particular bane were a group of drunk and dope-smoking university students from otago, followed by a group of four drunk pre-middle-aged blokes who barged their way through the crowd before stopping right in front of us. they endured a stunning burst of vitriol from the other punters who had been in the area long before them - and rightly so. i had a particular problem with a 6"5' member of the invading group who decided to stand directly in front me. lance was more perturbed with another member of the same group who decided to take piss in the middle of the crowd.

the sky over mt smart decided to follow suite and also leaked all over the crowd. the jacket, that i had been 50/50 about bringing, paid off.

kanye west opened the concert and i have to say that i was quite impressed with him. i would put him in the top three american intelligent hiphop innovators (knarls barkley and outkast are the other two). kanye struggled to work the more rock-orientated crowd, but informed us that of all the places they had played on this leg of the tour, nz gave him the warmest reception. that being the case, my heart goes out to the guy for the way he must have been received in australia.

after that, U2 took blimin' ages to come on. but when they did they erupted the stadium with 'city of blinding lights' and then 'vertigo'. i loved their light show - i couldn't see the stage. the aforementioned sixfootfiver turned around to me after a couple of songs to ask if i was feeling a bit happier now. i thanked him and said that i had an excellent view of his back. fortunately, because he was drunk, he swayed quite a bit - allowing me priceless glimpses of the on-stage action.

that aside, the concert rocked on nicely but seemed to hit a bit of a speedbump when bono began his sermons about poverty, justice and about muslimchristianjews all needing to get along. i've been to a lot of christian concerts in my life, so i know what it is to have a concert interrupted for a quick sermon. and i'm in favour of makingpovertyhistory and justice, and for an end to religious violence. and if someone had criticised U2 in my hearing for the way they push 'the issues' in their concerts, i would have thought that that person was obviously shallow and had no idea. but at the concert itself, i found myself inwardly begging bono to just let the songs speak for themselves and just get on with the music.

i suppose that feeling wasn't helped by me not agreeing with at least one point that bono seemed to be making. he delivered his (in)famous "Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true" while wearing a headband that made the word 'coexist' out of a crescent, star of david and cross. quite apart from a tendency i have to lean heavily in favour of "jesus being true more than the other two" (also a rhyme), it seems to me that bono's line is a throw-away when you consider that jesus's teaching contradicts that of mohammed, and that mohammed's teaching directly contradicted that of jesus and the jews. how could "Jesus, Jew, Mohammed - all true" be true? i would wholeheartedly agree if bono had stood up and said that we could learn something from jesus, jew and mohammed. but what does he mean by "all true"? was he saying that they are all equally true, completely true? am i missing his point? i can't see that secularists could have been particularly inspired by his dictum (other than to have their belief strengthened that religion is the main cause of the problem ) - and i am certain that secularism was the dominant religion in the crowd at the stadium last night. but you see that he has at least achieved one of on-going aims: to be controversial to generate discussion.

anyway, to get back to the music: after that glitch, the concert picked up again. a highlight was when they performed 'one tree hill' - written about an auckland landmark. my favourite bono preaching part came later in the concert when, referring back to one tree hill and the fact that the actual tree had been killed by an act of vandalism years after the song was written, he said: "they tore down our tree, but you can't tear down poetry. you can't cut down poetry with a chainsaw." which brought a tear to my eye - i really did love that tree and really wish it was still there. but the place is still called 'one tree hill' despite the absence.

the concert closed with the obligatory encores where key U2 songs were played - including the impressive new 'the saints are coming' which was brilliantly done. i should also mention bono's rendition of 'miss sarajevo' in which he sang luciano pavaroti's part flawlessly. his voice seemed to be in fine form - despite the fact that i thought i had heard it declining on their last album when compared to earlier albums.

the concert finally ended with the song 'kite' from 'all that you can't leave behind'. and so there it was. the crowd lingered as we pushed our way out. the concert had been and gone - all that waiting, all the hype, and nothing left to do but go home. my personal feeling was a mixture of pleasure and disappointment. you don't want anything to tarnish something that you have been waiting that long for. that being said - it really was a brilliant concert and they are a brilliant band. and if they ever come to nz again, i will go again (but next time i might get seats - far away from the rabble, but not so far away that i can't see them standing behind taller than normal drunk guys and getting rained on from all directions).

some pictures... (the first one's by me, the rest are by anna - click to see them bigger): (top to bottom) anna waits at the concert, the edge and larry, coexist, letting go...