The Killers at Rod Laver Arena
As mentioned previously, Sabriena’s sister Shaina and her family are coming out to visit us, and a few months back we bought tickets to see The Killers. Like myriad Millennials in the early 2000s, we fell in love with their album “Hot Fuss” for a few months of what was otherwise a pretty shitty time for us, so when they were playing an anniversary tour, Sabriena bought tickets for it. We thought we had it all figured out, that we’d go down there, stay in a motel near the arena, then lazily drive out to pick up Shaina et al the next morning.
We unfortunately managed to screw up the timezone conversions (presumably converting it erroneously when the airline itenerary already did so), which would mean that we’d see the show on Friday night, then pick them up on Sunday. Bugger, that’s less convenient. We sure weren’t leaving our dog for two whole days in the house, so nothing to it we’d have to come back Saturday morning and then drive back out to MEL on Sunday morning. So we took our car, instead of the van we’d rented.
I’d mentioned to my cousin Rodney that we were going to see them, and he asked what day, as they were going - twice (they’re doing another tour for an album we’ve not heard as well). It turned out they were going to the same show, so we arranged to meet up for dinner first. The drive in was fucked, the last 15KM taking about half as long as the preceding ~250KM did, but we eventually got to the motel, got checked in, and put the car to bed in the very tight underground parking spot. We sat down to approximately ten minutes of TV until Rod messaged to say they were nearby - they’d managed to stash their car at a friend’s appartment near the venue too, so walked over.
We ended up eating at St Andrews Beach Brewery, ironically nowhere near the beach and as near as I can tell not actually brewing anything on-site… but the food was quite good and reasonably priced, and after a bit of yakking we wandered over to the arena (right next door) in time to see part of the opening act.
The actual show itself was brilliant. A bunch of people, mostly our age but ranging quite dramatically from the young (no ear protection in sight, but whatever, not my kids) all the way up to some folks who looked substantially older than I’d have guessed. As advertised, they played the entire album, and then for an encore played a few extra fan favourites as well.
Managed to get out just before midnight I think, and crawl into bed. Woke up the next morning to find the complementary milk and coffee was not-so, the milk was no good… we tried to have a black coffee, but ended up just pouring it out and resolving to buy some on the way home.
A lazy Saturday consisting mostly of shifting my computers out of my office onto a table in the living room, so I could pack up my desk and then set up an air mattress in there for Shaina and Flip, with the two boys bunking on air matresses in Duncan’s room.
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