London Calling

Once more unto the San Fran, this time to see The Clash cover band London Calling, who hail from Bristol. This was the penultimate date of their Oz/NZ tour, playing in Auckland the next night; having been around Australia extensively beforehand. The Clash, you say? Yes, I know some of their songs! We should go!

To sustain us through the long night ahead, I searched establishments nearby. Many have changed names or changed hands, and what was once Heaven Pizza now appears to be Santeria. They still sell pizza though, so we had that.

Then we trotted down Cuba Street, bumping into quizmaster Andy & wife Tanya on the way – it was kinda pre-arranged, we knew we’d both be at the gig. Andy is a Clash aficionado, whereas I’m more of a dilettante – I only have London Calling and Combat Rock in my collection.

The support band came on just after 8pm – a local Wellington band called Mister Unit. They sound like a good old-fashioned rock band, and also sound like a company that replaces the doors on your kitchen cabinets.

Mister Unit

Then the main act, London Calling, arrived. My knowledge of The Clash isn’t comprehensive, so I only knew about half the songs they played, but they included Tommy Gun, White Man In Hammersmith Palais, Rudy Can’t Fail, Should I Stay Or Should I Go?, Death Or Glory, The Guns Of Brixton,  Clampdown, and I fought The Law. After a brief interval they reappeared for a three-song encore of Rock The Casbah, London Calling, and White Riot.

London Calling

This was definitely a high-energy gig, and all the songs were delivered with vim, vigour and verve. It was exhausting just watching them. At the front, some of the young folk (and some of the older folk – the crowd demographic was more diverse than I’d expected) were moshing and pogoing away like in the old days…the only difference being that the band was probably more together than at an original Clash gig. We so punk rock!

The Birdmann And Egg

Nicola has started volunteering at Circa Theatre, and is called upon to ush about once a month. She was scheduled for The Birdmann And Egg – Birdhouse, which is ostensibly a children’s show. But I thought I’d go along as well to see what was happening.

Nicola in mid-ush

The show features two characters on stage, who are – you guessed it! – The Birdmann (a man), and Egg (an egg). The story, such as it is, revolves around Regurgitator, who is eating up all the cities in the world, including Wellington. Regurgitator is threatening to eat their home, The Great Tree, a sentient tree who offers them advice; as does Celsius, the computer. In between, there’s joke-telling, including inviting contributions from the audience, and a soft toy fight – again, involving the audience. Can Birdmann and Egg save the world with fun? There’s only one way to find out!

It was an early evening show, and only lasted 40 minutes, so afterwards we took ourselves off for dinner at Apaché. This is a Vietnamese restaurant that I’ve been to once before, and was unimpressed by the speed of service when we were having a pre-concert dinner, oh, years ago. Anyway, Nicola has been there more recently and they appear to have got their act together more now. The food was good, although the waiter’s recommendation that we needn’t order additional rice appeared to be, well, wrong. But other than that, the food was tasty.