Old Gigs: 1998

I've had trouble trying to remember the year, but i'm pretty sure it was 1998 cos The Knuckledraggers started a few months later, but anyway, in April 98, Gonk put on his annual harvest party in Blackball on the Coast. Me and Rik and Deaf Tom headed down in Rik's old Holden ute that he'd just bought off Deano, and had a relatively uneventful trip down until we hit Blackball and headed for the infamous Hilton, the local pub that'd been the scene of plenty of raucous antics. There was already a sizeable crowd in there, including a carload of friends that'd come over from CHCH and they were fkn trashed. Gradually everyone filtered over to the hall where the gig was being held. Fkn excellent turnout with groups from as far away as Dunedin, and a vanload down from Wellington cos Gobsmakt were heading the bill. This was their original lineup minus vocalist Magoo, who had now left or been kicked out or whatever happened.
Pretty sure Amen were first up and belted out their usual set of originals that warmed the crowd up nicely for the next West Coast band, the legendary Brain Grenade. Now they broke one of their main rules this night, "No acid before we play", needless to say it was a pretty entertaining set. We were all pretty shitfaced by now, and i can remember Skip continually stopping mid-song cos he was just too messed up to follow through, plenty of banter/abuse between him and the crowd. It was only the solid manic drumming of Gonk that saw them right. Fucken loved that band.
And then Gobsmakt got up and instigated a collective singalong of classic old punk/oi covers. I'd never seen them before and thought they were brilliant. I can recall me and Rik on "guest" vocals for a song or two, then watching Joe from CHCH bangbangcrashing his way around the dancefloor, almost legless before being KOed by one of the Wellington skins. Man, i'm sure he was on his way down before the punch even landed!! A couple of us carried him out and managed to gradually simmer a bit of tension that it caused.
I can't remember any of the other bands or much else about the night, just general consumption of anything/everything on offer then waking up all haggard and dishevelled on a table with Rik pouring beer on my head. A few others were still up and sitting round a potbelly stove, Fyfe, Swan, SteveDroog, Bart, Shane, Jules, etc. I managed to stumble my way out in search of a shop, which took a while, i mean Blackball is an old mining town that is now largely empty and in the state i was in it seemed like some kinda wild west throwback. Amazingly i bumped into Gonk of all people and he pointed me in the right direction. On the way back i chanced upon all the CHCH boys just awake from sleeping in the car, Joe all disorientated in the back with a cracker of a shiner, and no memory beyond Greymouth the night before.
When it was finally time to trek back to Nelson, i found myself in the drivers seat, and how the fuck that came about i don't know. Anyway, i just couldn't get it together and musta stalled the ute at least ten times trying to take off. This is no exaggeration. By the end of it me and Rik were crying with hysterical laughter, while Tom sat stone-faced in the middle, and everyone gathered out the front watched on thinking:"what the fuck are they on?" The answer? Everything man, everything. I've asked Rik if he remembers this but his recollection is vague. The thing that cracks me up the most is the fact that i was somehow designated to drive. I remember rolling down the window to try and square off to everyone by saying it was a dodgy clutch but that just made us laugh more, and eventually i managed to bunnyhop it down the road before somehow putting it into second. Hahahahaha
Thank fuck we made it home.