De-gentrification

It seems surprising in hindsight. I was absolutely shattered walking home after a long long day at work after too little sleep, having worked until after midnight the night before. It was brutally cold. The fire was warm. The wine was making me snoozy. I'm shocked I made it out of the house.

The promised snow down to 200m had not eventuated. And then, for some reason, I left my jacket in the car. Sad to say, but I've been becoming a leather jacket wearing guy standing at the back of the venue, nursing my drink.

But not tonight. I'd intended to take it pretty quietly. I was tired after all, and still recovering. However, fate had me back in the mosh. Not quite old-school prepared[1], but I at least wasn't wearing a 10cm wedge of pounamu (which is pretty brutal to run with, let alone jump). So, um, yeah. In case you hadn't worked out where this is going, it was fucking awesome. It reminded me of amazing concerts I've been to in the past, where you're existing just in the ecstatic moment, swimming in the music (I suspect the six sub-woofers either side of the stage may have played some role in this sensation). I didn't once think about the evil reviewer, or the work I was supposed to be doing this morning, or even realise how much my legs hurt. And man do they hurt today. Heh. I guess with having been sick and all I'm below average fitness, plus my legs kind of suck anyway, so I'm extra-sore this morning.

Despite some possibility that is might be a Wellington-only treat, they played Deb's Night Out in the encore. Unfortunately, I think the rest of the crowd were fairly underwelmed by this. However, it made at least one person *very* happy.

And then in time-honoured fashion [2], the moon was huge and golden and setting over the city as I arrived home. Unfortunately I didn't quite get the ideal exposure set before it started to go down. It was waay cooler than this pic reprezents.



[1] That is, I was wearing a watch, I'd made no attempt to attach my glasses to self (nothing like being in a wild mosh and attempting to catch glasses before they hit the floor...), I wasn't wearing particularly old clothes, and I didn't have my wallet in a plastic bag(!). Once upon a time, I found it amusing to wear a hypercolour t-shirt to gigs, for a visual indication of how 'good' the going was...

[2] Shihad concerts are frequently accompanied by amazing natural phenomena. For example, there was a magnitude 8+ earthquake during the encore at a gig in Invercargill a couple of years back, followed by an aurora on the way home.