w/ Little River Band and Australian Crawl
February:
06 - Western Springs, Auckland
08 - Athletic Park, Wellington
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This blog's purpose is to archive scheduled concert dates in New Zealand - international and local artists, covering late 70s - late 90s. It will by no means be 100% complete, and it will most likely be a "work in progress" for a very long time ;-)
He definitely played ChCh on the same tour. I was there, and LRB shocked me at how good they were. Willie wasn't impressed by our afternoon nonchalance..NZ crowds weren't used to that then. Especially when he dropped an American flag that was as big as the South Island as well..all the US bullshit left us cold..hell, he could play guitar, though! (BTW, the same afternoon malaise affected the Peter Frampton concert in the same way - he reportedly said it was the worst concert he had ever played. No pleasing some people...Listen to Bowie - who played 3 days later - the night has an atmosphere that can't be replicated (QE11 Park)
ReplyDeleteYes he played qe2 park, lrb were amazing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was there too. I lived in a street just down Bower Ave from QE11. And after LRB had been on, Willie came on and said "How the HELL do you follow THAT??" Willie's reception at that concert I would judge to be "lukewarm"!!
DeleteI hadn't really paid much attention to LRB's music before that, but after that concert I was hooked. Got all their albums, saw them at least 4 times at the Chch Town Hall, and MET some of them at Musical Specialists on Colombo Street, where they went in to see Bob (Oz) Mould to have their instruments checked before their concert that night across the road at the Town Hall!! Went to the first concert to see Willie, but have been an LRB fan ever since!!
ReplyDeleteI was at the Willie Nelson concert in 1981 at QE2 with LRB and Australian Crawl. The group I was with thoroughly enjoyed it. At no time was there an American flag as the stage backdrop but there was the confederate flag and when Willie Nelson came on to the stage he yanked on a rope and a huge New Zealand flag unfurled the audience were rapped. That is my memory and it is quite clear in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI was there too. It was actually a Texas flag. I work for the State of Texas now so I'm 100% sure which flag it was.
ReplyDeleteWell im surprised no-one has detailed the incident at the Western Springs concert during the interval after LRB had played. 30 or so gang members pushed in through the crowd up to the front, when a bottle smashed onto the stage a sound crew member went to yell at them and got pulled off the stage and beaten. I saw honest to god texas cowboys ome running onto the stage , size up the stuation and keep running off into the gang. The first one took out a gang member with a boot heel on the way down. No match for the hard punching cowboy/road crew the gang soon were all k'od. The last one (a small white guy ) pulled a knife, which was instantly kicked away and he too knocked out. When the crowd saw the cowboy rip his patch off the roar was deafining. Then we realised Willie had come out, was on a stool and started to strum away on his old acoustic to settle things down. I have never been to a better concert than in that moment. The good guys won.
ReplyDeleteHi William, I remember that incident exactly as you describe. Especially the boot heel on the way down.
DeleteI was at the concert in Auckland with my wife and young son, we stood at the front by the stage, someone started blowing on my neck , I eventually turned round and it was one of this hell's angels gang, that's when all hell broke loose...Willie was ushered off stage and , memory is no so good, but lots of fighting , I'm not sure if it was two gangs fighting each other and one guy laid on floor near us, in a bad way,who eventually was whisked away in an ambulance..Willie did come back out after a while and finished the concert...
DeleteYeah mate, still makes me smile!
ReplyDeletePhotographs of the concert and Willie jogging https://canterburystories.nz/search?keys=willie+nelson&items_per_page=24
ReplyDelete