So we decide to do the bus thing a month or two out. We find this company in Auckland called Party Bus, who run a bus kitted out with a big soundsystem and a liquor license. They do chartered pub crawls. After a few emails we get them to agree to letting us host a show in there, and even get them to sponsor us with a cut price deal. So there you go, Little Pictures: sponsored by Party Bus. Of Montreal would be proud :D
Anyway, we drive up with our good friend Alistair, and head to the bus depot. The bus depot is out in the countryside, and it turns out Party Bus have like 50 buses out in this giant paddock.
So we soundcheck stuff, and amazingly we're able to get it all running. We had borrowed a little battery power generator to run all of our stuff, and the bus company hardwires in our mixer into the bus specially for us. VERY nice of them!
On the night of the show we turn up to see a bunch of people waiting on the footpath. We'd sold out the show in presales, which was a first for us, but we were still nervous as to what actually might happen. Well everyone's there early, our friend Andrew from cheeseontoast plays bus conductor, clipping peoples' tickets and so forth. People pile on with a TONNE of alcohol. As we pull out of the bus stop, unbeknown to us, a couple of guys from our NZ label Lil Chief Records turn up (we left slightly early) and run alongside the bus trying to get in. But no one saw them! We feel so bad for leaving Scott and Lawrence behind :(
But we take off into the night, and Andrew starts up his ipod DJ set through the Bus PA. We weren't sure what people would do on the bus. Would everyone just sit there awkwardly? Well, no they didn't. Everyone was drinking and chatting and having a good time. So we drive around for a little, and everyone gets to know each other. We were surprised, we had never seen most of the people in the bus before. Exciting!
It came time for us to play, but we were worried how it would work out. We taped everything down to the seats and the floor, to try and stop it all moving around. We knew the PA wasn't loud enough really, and with everything jostling around we feared for the worst... but it totally worked. In fact, some songs even sounded BETTER on a bus than in a venue (...). People were up dancing and singing along. We even had a go at doing "This Bus is Very Small". Worked pretty well :D We went over the harbour bridge and so on. Then we played our last song as we climbed Mount Eden, and just as we finished we pulled in at the top and everyone rushed out to the panoramic view of Auckland. Perfect!
It just couldn't have gone better. And all you other bands out there, play in a bus! It's a lot of fun :D
Tonnes of pictures here, thanks to Trousy and Ali:
http://flickr.com/photos/11474879@N00/sets/72157607429724387/
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