Life on the road: NZ bands spill the beans

What is it like on the road this summer? REBECCA BARRY hears from local musical tourists.


* Brooke Fraser (who's been on the all-ages Beach Day Out Tour before resuming dates with Goldenhorse)

"It's like school camp but cooler - school camp with Scribe-mania all around. He's, like, the hottest thing, you know? I was in a restaurant yesterday with Ben King from Goldenhorse having lunch and the waitress didn't recognise us or anything and she goes, 'I hear Scribe's in town, I heard he just walked into a shop across the road'. Then I felt these hands on my shoulders and I turned around and it was Scribe and he was just giving me a little back rub. She looked at him and then looked at me and went bright red. It was hilarious.

"Yesterday we played Tauranga and it was pouring with rain and really miserable but everyone agreed it was the best crowd so far. They were the hardcore ones, you know? They were the ones who were there to get their money's worth and were really responsive.

"Goldenhorse and I went and had dinner at the hotel restaurant last night and some of the meals were disgusting so Kirsten [Morelle] complained and managed to get it free. It's good being with people like that."

* Ben King, Goldenhorse

"There's a great sense of camaraderie on the tour. Except for one car, everybody's been travelling on the same bus and watching the same trashy movies and eating the same dodgy corn snacks. There's also the sense that it's you against everyone else. It's the bands against the promoters, against the hotel management, whatever's going on.

"One interesting way the group subdivided is that there's some openly Christian acts on the tour - Eight, Brooke [Fraser] and Nesian Mystik - and Goldenhorse isn't religious at all. I think Brooke has a conservative streak but she's hardly a nana. I often think if you're going on tour with Christian bands that you're not going to have much fun, it's all going to be prayer and unleavened bread. But everyone is really sociable. We've been having regular water fights, which sounds kind of lame but hey, it's good clean fun. Very clean."

* James Reid, the feelers

"We had a great time in Coroglen. Larger Than Life seems to be going particularly well because everyone knows it, thanks to the radio.

"We're staying wherever we can, really. Pull up a piece of grass somewhere and get in there. There's been a bit of cricket, in fact we're just about to make our debut. My forte? I'm an all-round retard."

* Hamish Gee, the feelers, Crazy Beach Tour

"It's been a lovely tour, it's basically been a holiday with an exciting show every night, which is the best of both worlds. We're all getting good tans. On these summer tours it's a case of combining business with pleasure.

"It's hard to pinpoint the best show because we've had full houses every night. In the Coromandel and places like that you get quite a young crowd in their late teens, early 20s who always frequent those spots and they really get into it. The shows we did in Auckland had an older crowd.

"We've been doing this for a while now and we've grown up a bit. It used to get a little bit expensive when we had to take care of things like hotel rooms getting wrecked. The bills would roll in and it wasn't really funny anymore. But we're grown-ups now and things run a lot smoother. We're behaving ourselves, yes. Why, what have you heard?"

* Dave Gibson, Elemeno P

"The crowds have been wicked because everyone's on holiday and letting their hair down. In Coroglen there were about 1200 people, which was cool because it seems like it's in the middle of nowhere. Whangamata was pretty intense, there's so many people down there. The hotel we're at has been getting noise complaints from neighbours and there was real concern they were going to give us notices. I'm like, if you want some peace and quiet don't move to Whangamata, especially not at New Year's Eve.

"There's been lots of inter-band mingling and competitiveness in a New Zealand-versus-Australia kind of way. We played a game of cricket, which Steriogram won, if you must know, just by one ball though. It was very, very close, which is good given none of us are sports people and I'm crap at anything that requires hand-eye co-ordination.

"Tyson [Steriogram] copped it pretty bad last night 'cos he gave Justyn [Elemeno P] a brown-eye out the window of their van and Justyn happened to have a mince pie in his hand ... Yeah, I think Tyson got the worst of it. I'm just waiting for retribution so it's a scary time.

"Most of the time we hang around until the feelers have finished. You hear a lot of rock'n'roll stories about the feelers - mostly revolving around alcohol - but they've been better behaved than I expected. Everybody's always like, 'Hey, where's the afterparty?' but then we go home, we watch David Letterman and have a cup of tea."

* Tyson Kennedy and Brad Carter, Steriogram

B: "We went surfing yesterday in Oakura, just over the road from the show. We've been in America all year and haven't had a chance to go to the beach so it was our first time in the water. We're really happy to be back in New Zealand and able to eat nice food and drink nice coffee and meet nice people. It's like a holiday for us, eh."

T: "And it's cool 'cos people know your songs. The other day we played in Whangamata and right from the start they were all up the front and shouting 'White Trash!' and stuff like that. Some of the other crowds, it's been more like a warm-up. But Whangamata, they were just straight into it.

T: "Last night there were a few interesting games that were ah, introduced to the evening. Drinking games. That was mainly from Elemeno P and the feelers.

"The other day we pulled up to the gas station and Elemeno P was there. We've got this great Previa van and it has a big sunroof, so I decided it would be a good idea to pull my pants down and stick my bum out, and Justyn decided it would be a good idea to throw this boiling hot mince pie at my ass. Fortunately he missed. He got the side of the van and it just splattered on me so it wasn't the full deal.

B: "There's been quite a lot of bums on this tour. I brown-eyed Hamish, from the feelers, across the motel yard the other day. He saw me, but then he brown-eyed me back and there was a girl who saw it and then, like, Brent Eccles [promoter] saw it too and he told him off. That was cool."

On Tour

Who: Goldenhorse and Brooke Fraser

Where and when: Whangamata Hotel, tonight; Pauanui Community Centre, tomorrow; Coroglen Tavern, Whitianga, Sunday.

Who: The Beach Crazy Tour with the feelers, Elemeno P and Steriogram

Where and when: Mangawhai Tavern, tonight; Duke of Marlborough, Russell, tomorrow; Wade Tavern, Silverdale, Sunday