Time for a rugby boycott?

Shayne P Carter's music competes with the thump of a rugby ball for recognition in New Zealand society.

Last Saturday, for the first time in a long time, I forgot the All Blacks were playing a test match.

I didn't watch the haka or the start of the game. By the time I remembered, I only caught the last 20 minutes. The pre-test haka is an iconic part of our culture. So, of course, is rugby.

As a 6 or 7-year-old I ate porridge at 2am in the morning and watched grainy black and white coverage of the All Blacks taking on the Grand Slam. I loved it.

As an adult I am now wondering whether I should miss more All Black games.

A sort of sporting conscientious objection.

Derailment in life tends to come from getting the balance wrong through work, play, sport, your social life, alcohol, relationships, exercise etc

Just lately, I've concluded our country is imbalanced.

Sport is too dominant in our culture. Stand by for derailment. Or in rugby's case, are we already seeing it?

Strippers, disabled loos, assaults - are these incidents telling us that as a country, we should care more about other things. Art, music, literature, poetry, dance?

Blame these impure thoughts on Don McGlashan and Shayne P Carter.

On Thursday night I sat in Kerikeri's Turner Centre, several rows back from the front of the stage.

McGlashan and Carter are, on paper, a curious pairing at first glance.

On stage, live, they delivered a compelling two-hour performance that occasionally moved people to tears.

Not everyone in this country is left in awe by thumping tackles, and dancing feet on a rugby field.

Personally, music moves me more frequently in ways sport doesn't.

That doesn't mean that watching Kamo Intermediate win a thrilling pool match in a national cricket tournament isn't one of the greatest sporting moments I have witnessed. It is.

And it's not hard to get heads to nod in affirmation when I share this with people.

But tell someone that the sight of Nick Cave leering over his stage monitors at Reading Festival performing Mercy Seat made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and you risk being branded a "faggot".

If our government gives money to Duco to stage Joseph Parker's "world" title fight, that's fine (actually, it's not, it's ludicrous) but where's the dollar for dollar investment in art, or music?

The people who have formed the colourful army that has raised money to build the Hundertwasser Art Centre have performed a minor miracle.

They aren't the Barmy Army, they're the Arty Army. And long may they fight on, after the HAC is built.

As for the Carter and McGlashan, one of them remarked last night that they weren't playing the hits.

Carter joked that in his case, he didn't have any.

He does. But sadly not in the commercial sense.

Any songwriter who can load one song (She Speeds) with enough melody and riffs for three songs has a hit on their hands.

Carter's problem though, is he lives in a country that values the thump of a rugby ball over three chords and the truth.