New Zealand Musicians Tell Us About Their Worst New Years Gigs

This article was originally published NYE 2017.

If your New Years haven't involved finding a bit of casual vomit in your tent courtesy of some stranger, dubious wake up locations with even more dubious overnight company or even just a brain-clenching, desert-in-your-mouth hangover on the 1st, you are probably in quite a small minority, my friend, and should probably applaud yourself for navigating the annual date changeover so sensibly.

For the rest of us mere mortals, New Years can be the worst. (I mean, it can be the best too, but let's be honest talking about those good times isn't what any of us are here for.) Even musicians, the aristocracy of summer festivals, have had their fair share of just generally terrible times around New Years.

VICE took it upon ourselves to dismantle the pedestal festival artists are on, coaxing some of our local musicians to tell us about their worst New Years gigs. Musicians—they're just like us.

I Was So High I Just Took My Clothes Off and Lay Down on Stage

One New Years a couple of years ago—I think it might have been Rhythm and Alps—I took too many drugs and I didn't say a word on the microphone and I ended up just lying on the ground on stage, just for like most of the show.

I had gotten down to Wanaka pretty early and I couldn't wait for the boys [the rest of the band], because they were on a later flight, so I got the promoter to pick me up and get me some drugs—weed, pills and shit and he gave me like a bag of mollie and I took it, pretty much took it all by myself at the hotel. Later I told him to come pick me up and take me to the venue and I was just wandering by myself for ages.

I ended up at this tent, took some more drugs with these hippies and then it was time for us to jump on stage—it was like 7 o'clock or something. And when I jumped on stage, and I didn't say anything. I had the microphone in my hand but then I just sat there, on the edge of the stage. I was just sitting there, and then I lay down, took my shirt off, took my shoes off—that was pretty much it.

Then I snapped out of it, and I started doing the show. The boys didn't care, they knew I was fucked up and they just let me ride it out. You can't really fight it when you're high as. It was cool, they were just cracking up. Afterwards we took some acid and looked at the stars. I didn't get to see the fireworks at all that night, I think I was in a tepee and I couldn't hear anything, I was just way too high and I was just mumbling shit and chewing my face off.

My Keyboardist Fell Asleep on Me

About two years ago I had what was definitely my most busy run of shows during the New Years period. I actually had three shows within a 24-hour period. One was in the South Island the other was north of Auckland and the other was in Auckland. So on the 31st we played Twisted Frequencies, which is in Takaka (near Nelson), it it was in the daytime. Right after that we had to catch a flight to Auckland, then drove up to Northern Bass where I had the midnight New Year's slot. Then we had a show at 3am in a bar in Britomart somewhere.

We were complete zombies at this stage. I think it's about an hour and a half or two hour drive from Northern Bass back to Auckland, I have no recollection of that drive. Anyway, we get to the bar and it was like a post-apocalyptic wasteland at that point. Whatever drugs anyone was taking was starting to wear off at that point. It was a weird vibe, everyone was kind of an autopilot, swaying in a semi-possessed sort of way on the dance floor.

I'm about three songs in at this bar and I look over my shoulder because there's supposed to be a keyboard solo and I see my keyboardist is actually sleeping. He totally just fell asleep. The funniest thing is I kind of gave him a shake on the shoulder and he wakes up and he goes straight into that solo without missing a beat. Which sort of says something about how good he is as a keyboard player to be able to do that. We still bring up that story every now and then.

We Played Through Torrential Rain

Definitely Coromandel Gold about five years ago. We had torrential rain which was going all day and all night and was about two or three foot deep at the front row of the stage. It was crazy. People lost their gumboots in the mud.

Me and a couple of friends had got a couple of superbikes and we thought yeah, sweet we'll ride our bikes there on an awesome bromantic roadie, like woah, it'll be summer as. Next thing, boom, it rained the whole way. It was the first time actually that I got soaked head to toe with all my leathers on. It rained that much. It was definitely a tester, but you've got to remind yourself that you're dry and you're out there playing to people who are in way worse conditions. But you've got to dig deep sometimes and remind the crowd that it's all good, you muddy little bastards. Pull your britches up, get over your glumness, gobble whatever you have to—if you have to, hold whoever you've got with you who gives you inspiration and get out there. Dance it off.

It was a tough one, but we had dedicated fans who stayed the whole time, they just got their gumboots on. They were all covered in mud. There was some funny shit too—arriving and people are already twelve hours into the festival with the rain and mud and they're just embracing it. There was one massive 16-metre mudslide in the corner.

I Had to Get Carried Off Stage After Pulling My Back

R&V 2012 [the year Diaz Grimm handed out a hundred joints to the crowd—allegedly, of course]: It was my first time playing at R&V and I just got off stage and I hadn't realised that all my friends had put their gear—laptops, phones and sweatshirts— in my gear bag, which is like a backpack twice the size of a normal backpack. And a guy who I had never met before but was producing songs for me was in the crowd and came straight up to me and said hey bro, I produced all these songs for you and I was like ah cool, let's hang out. So I grabbed my bag, swung it on my back and because I didn't realise how heavy it was I pulled my back real bad. So I had to get a couple of people to literally carry me to the St Johns tent. So they just had to pile me with pain killers and I could barely walk around the festival for a whole day.

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