Bon Jovi

I woke on the Saturday morning with an extra sping in my stride, for tonight I was in 80's soft rock heaven. The world famous Bon Jovi, with heart throb Jon up front and amature porn star Richie Sambora on lead guitar, live in Irelands biggest stadium. 80'000 sceaming fans.

Funny thing is, before I got myself a cheap ticket, if you had asked me if Bon Jovi were still touring I would probably have said No. Selling out an 80,000 seat staduim, your dreaming. Well in the emortal words of W Bush, I might have 'mis-underestimated' the old Glam rockers.

After watching the Munster Rugby team deal to the dirty cheese eating surrender monkeys from Barritz in the Hieneken cup final, I caught up with my mate Troy and his 2 Australian friends, Mark and Sarah to head to the gig. Moving straight into 2nd gear, Jim Beam was the order of the afternoon. A short cab ride and then a dodgie stroll through to Croke Park, we were greated with quite an array of Jovi supporters. From the very young, to ageing old mums squeezing into there leathers from the back of the closet, not the best look but rather entertaining.

The lads really put on a good show, but I really only new about 30% of the songs, but they did play some classics. Living on a Prayer, Dead or Alive and Shot thru the Heart! Special. See the videos below.



In the end, was really cool. But only issues i had with Jon.....No 'Blaze of Glory'. I was all ready to scream that puppy out, but no dice. Bastard even teased me with 3 bloody encores...I mean honestly who does 3 of them with out playing the best song they had!!!!!!! You could feel the pain in the crowd....or maybe it was just me. If there has been a bigger travisty in concert history i'd be dam suprised. But was a good night anyway. Croke park is one hell of a ground, and look forward to getting there for some sport, or even a bit of Billy Joel in July.

Next up the Munta weekend from Hell June 9 - Gunners and Metallica.

Were Back

First of all, an apology to all those ‘Elder Statesman’ fans who have been eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Statesman files. Excuses, as always, involve ramblings of poor time management and lack of energy. But in the end Ireland’s favorite kiwi’s are back on the web, so sit back for a recap of the last month or so! There is a lot to get thru folks, so be patient, and I’ve split them up to give the more ‘feeble’ of you a shot at getting through them with out loosing your place.

WARNING: Reoccurring theme

See 3 x Posts Blow Team

Stung in London

Joe Ward, he of the large posterior and thinning crop, invited Harbott and myself over for a nice relaxing weekend to watch his rugby team (London Wasps) play London Irish in the English premiership. The idea of returning to London after last years fateful trip caused much anguish with the Elder Statesman, but undaunted we pressed on with our plans. We decided, in our infinite wisdom, that we would head over on the Saturday afternoon on the cheap flight. And then back at midday on the Monday (Bank Holiday), which ultimately provided our final downfall.

So off to Airport, and flight delayed. 1-0 Airport. Harbott heads into duty free to buy some Whiskey for the flight, to calm our nerves. Except, its more like Duty without the free….same price as normal, infact more. 2-0 to the Airport. End up most of the way thru bottle on subsequent flight, and 1.5 hour train ride to Wards house. This travel time came as a surprise to the both of us, because we thought ‘the Wards’ actually lived close to the city center, when on closer inspection (Actual ride in train) we discovered Ealing Common (apt name) was not within a fuckin country mile of the fact. No bother!

We arrived rather happy, and after some initial catch up with the Girls, we headed out to meet up with Duncan Wilson, Leyton and Paul Booth……South Kensington anyone!!! Another 1 hour tube ride followed, only to be greeted with London’s drunkest kiwis, well it was special. An early afternoon session had put pay to any sensible conversation, so the lads did there talking via Tequila shots and some Vodka concoction. (Note Ambulance in back ground...not sure why)

Queue Wilson attempting to shake hands with Harbott and duChats via the medium of a clenched fist to the mouth….nice work champ. A quick DDT out the front of the bar put pay to Wilson’s night, and we headed off for greener pastures…..or Putney! 3 Lads tried too get into a nightclub, but the Alabama porch monkey on the door decided we weren’t the clientele they were looking for….what 3 steaming drunk kiwi’s!!! Blah off home to bed.

So the next day Amanda, Harbott and myself headed to High Wycombe for Joe’s game. Had really cool seats in the players area, the ground only seats about 12,000 meaning it was really intimate…cosy infact. The game turned out to be amazing with 14 tries scored, 3 of those before I had sat down with our beer. Unfortunately Joe and the twins weren’t able to engineer a win and the Wasps went down 37-56, but the score line was not a true reflection of the game. So the night was off to a good start.

We then waited for Ward to scrub up, and managed to meet his coach Ian McGeechan after Harbott dispensed some honesty calls on old Geech, he managed to secure Joe another 10min game time for next week. Poor Ward was at this stage pinker than a slapped arse, as his two mates embarrassed him from pillar to post. Next up this young girl comes up to Ward for the obligatory signature, he grabs pen and signs the page (his face to be more precise) and I casually ask the young lass who he is…….she looks him dead in the face, shrugs shoulders and finally points to his now defaced player profile! Brilliant.

To be honest it’s just jealousy from the Lads, but fuckin worth it. Ricky Flutey was also there waving the NZ/Maori flag aloft, with his combination of number ones and jandals, to mickey bro.Anyway before leaving the ground we stopped by the Souvenir store for the Joe Ward No. 16 jumper, but we must have just missed out because there were none on the racks..Buggar.

We piled into cab’s back to London, 40min cab ride, to the Wards house for a pitstop. Downed a few more and then headed out into Fulham, the Stags head I believe, meeting up with Sandy. Now it’s at this point things were getting messy. Car sickness is a ghastly issue, but when its not your car it makes for interesting state of affairs, and this was such a scenario. Young Harbott, having endured 60min worth of cab ride combined with the London cabbie BO, need to vent. Tactics were required if we were to stay on time, so Ward and myself engaged the driver in some witty repartee while Harbott sent his last meal onto the roads of London…well he thought!

We managed to get to the pub, and upon exit of the cab, we were all greeted with the site of the door completely covered in spew…..a crowd had gathered and were also enjoying the humor of it. Took me a good 10min to recover from it.Harbott recons the Cabbie must have made fuck all due to his new ‘Client Repellant Door’….to funny.

We all hit the Stags head, well like a Stag and were right into it. A few of the Girls from home were there, Katie, Cindy and Sandy. Hadn’t seen Sands for at least 1 year, so was great catching up with her. We then headed to another bar down the road, but at this stage we were all well and truly cooked. So off home. Where Ward decided to play Chef!

See the video below for drunk’d antics of Joe and myself.

The weekend had been problem free till this next point. London = Travel. We kind of got the distance and time needed to get to Airport completely incorrect. Infact we weren’t even fuckin close to catching our 12:00pm plane. Thinking leaving Wards with 2.5 hrs to spare would be plenty, it suddenly dawned on us ‘we was wrong’. So after a frightfully boring 4 hour wait we were on a plane home. Airports 3 – Elder Statesman – 0

God I hate airports.

We did have great Donut when returning home, got to see the Kaiser Chiefs live at Dublin Castle, care of Sean. Was Brilliant. The start of the music season. Bring it on.

Donut Kings - The champions of Ireland

The Heineken Cup Semi-Final between Leinster v Munster was billed in Ireland as the biggest sports event of the year. The 2 best teams in Ireland competing for a place in the final for the European crown. Big stuff people. Tickets we being sold for over 500Euro a pop. The game was to be played at Lansdowne Rd on the Sunday 23^rd April. Now Harbott and Myself have been rather critical of the standard of footy over here, but were keen to watch the game in a pub some where. Lucky Steve’s boss actually likes him, and quite amazingly handed him 2 tickets for the east terrace……excuse me!!! . This guy is a massive supporter of Leinster ….but we no complain. Below is a view from out Dans flat window

So the night before we had the game, the lads were out in town, basically trying to sell these tickets for 600 each. Hey god loves a trier…haha. No takers, which was all good. So Sunday morning comes around and the boys are ready to go. But as so often happens with Donut, it can be infectious. Dalton gets a call from friend who also has 2 spare stand tickets Dalton wanted me to add, and rightly so, that the tickets he blagged were West stand seating. Were as ours were in the terrace, which had a closer feel to the pamplona bull run than a rugby ground. But was still bloody good. …looks like 4 of the lads are being treated. We headed to the local, and were greeted by dumb founded looks, and comments such as “How the fuck did you 4 Kiwi bastards get FREE tickets to THE game”……ah we know people.

The Video above is not mine, our seats are down the far right end. But just shows the atmosphere so well.

Incase you don’t know Munster have quite possibly the most madly loyal supporters in the world. Red everywhere. They also have a huge female following, even have special womens tight fitting rugby jumpers….top work Munster. Anyway, Game was not that flash. But atmosphere was insane, Munster winning easily. Then off to the Lansdowne rd Hotel for a rather extended Sunday session with the lads. Helped that this was the first day we had worn t-shirts in Ireland….good times.