The next morning. It’s four am and the Barina speeds along empty Brisbane streets toward our airport rendezvous. Several eight dollar coffees later and the Kingfisha jet lurches down the tarmac on the next leg of the Water Runnin tour.
Sydney is first, and it’s time for Beef Pho in Newtown before hitting the Brighton Up Bar for a little club date on Oxford St. Mad support from local reggae crew ManaLion who bring great tunes and heaps of music gear for us to share. About 100 peeps squeeze in to catch our set and the vibe is strong.
Scandal: which Kingfisha member accidentally went to the wrong bathroom and wondered why it was so clean and hygienic in there as he was desecrating the place?
We arrive at our accommodation after the show and a tired Jason leads the way upstairs. Except he is a little lost and is actually headed straight into the neighbouring ‘massage’ parlour. He looks confused when he is invited to “please take your clothes off and lie down on the table”.
Not enough sleep later, we cram back in for the red-eye to Melbs. Our accommodation is cheap. It’s cheap because it’s right above the stage of the music venue downstairs and all afternoon you get bands sound-checking their way into your dreams. Its cool though, they’re playing a wide range of styles from emo to folk-emo and some Christian-devotional emo.
Tonight we’re gigging at the Evelyn with massive thanks to The Cactus Channel for schooling us on instrumental soul and also for the back-line. I haven’t been excited like this about a Aussie band since catching Hiatus Kaiyote for the first time. I show my enthusiasm by spilling beer all over their gear backstage.
Our set goes real well and everybody is feeling it. We celebrate after with Brenden. Brenden is a punter who starts with; “youse guysh are a really great band, nah serioushly”. Which always sends alarm bells ringing in my head, but he actually turns out to be a top bloke and shouts the band heaps of beer! Thanks mate!
We head to our backpackers dorm and all cram into the one room for the night. Next morning Shannon is kinda half yelling “Kristina, who is that in your bed?” During the night, a very drunk Irish backpacker, lets call him Skruffy, snuggled right up to Kristina and was spooning her till the break of dawn. Kris thought it was her husband in bed with her. Skruffy, upon being called on his indiscretion, was still a little too drunk to really care or indeed, move. Which forced Kingfisha to swarm on him and several headlocks and air-swings later he was out the door.
Kissed the runway back home that morning and we’ve always gotta stalk our elusive metallic prey. Which just means someone has to walk the airport looking for discarded luggage trolleys to avoid paying the $4 fee. I managed to grab one right in front of an elderly airport official who was not impressed with my trolley-hacking ways. He tried to rip the cart from my grasp. I simply body checked him, called him an asshole and went about my business. It was good to be back in Brisbane.
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Kingfisha will be touring throughout October and November. To follow them along their tour, check them out on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Kingfishamusic
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