Stinging hot

I spent much of the pre-Valentine weekend travelling. Saturday morning we went for a long drive to sunny, art-deco town Napier in Hawke's Bay to catch Sting's Symphonicity tour. Was a good day for a drive, the first long, out-of-town drive for Tess' new Toyota ist. We reached the town center past 1 pm, quickly booked in the backpackers, met up with Cathy who took the bus from Wellington, drove to where the buses which will take us to the venue - the Mission Estate vineyard.

We reached the location at 3 pm and typical Filipinos that we are - were were armed for battle - in this case, we had 4 picnic mats completely spread out, and all the supplies we need - juices, sodas, rice and adobo, sliced bread and tuna in cans, snacks (we Filipinos are afraid to go hungry). We got a good, strategic location - close to the stage and yet a short walk from the loos. However, being a vineyard and an outdoor concert, naturally we were unsheltered from the scorching heat of the sun - at a time when there's serious La Nina phenomenon going on in NZ - and did I mention that the ozone layer holes are located down under, hence heat can be really, unbearably penetrating to the skin?

Several NZ acts sang in the afternoon to the early evening and from the time we sat down all the way to just before Sting appeared I slowly watched as people continue to fill-up the venue - apparently there were 25,000 in total. Kiwis love their outdoor music events, and they always come in prepared with their picnic mats, outdoor chairs and chilly bins filled with drinks. The lines to buy wine and alcohol was unbelievably long. Seriously, I do not understand the purpose of keeping people from bringing in their ownalcohol except to earn money. They inspect bags so that you can't bring alcohol inside the venue - I would've thought this is for security reasons as inebriated people tend to do stupid things - but obviously, because they sell alcohol inside then that's really not their concern. It's more like "I don't care if you become drunk as long as you drink the alcohol we sell".

Sting appeared at half past 7. He started singing, and all my dizziness, my heat-induced boredom, the 6 hour travel that my poor bottom endured were all forgotten. At 56, he is still an amazing performer, telling the audience bits about how he got the idea for some songs he sang, and entertaining us with his beautiful voice.