For those of you playing along at home, I am dragging out a recount of the time I saw Daryl Braithwaite live. In the flesh. You can catch up on Part One here, but it’s really just some bulshit about glitter. Here’s were we get into the name dropping. I’m actually a bit of an insider you guys.

 

So I was in the same vicinity as the many who made a nation believe in love. And I was feeling good. I had avoided peeing on myself in a portaloo. I had dropped a few swears in front of respectable old people. I hadn’t had much breakfast. I was in the zone.

 

But it wasn’t just Big Daryl who was gracing the stage that day, but also Ross Wilson, the guy who wrote The Eagle Rock and Come Said the Boy, d-floor favourites I love to gyrate to while keeping eye contact with the most squeamish person at the party.

 

Now, as someone who went to uni in Brisbane and likes to prove how much of a fun person I am, I have this obnoxious insistence on dropping my pants along with Da Boiz when The Eagle Rock comes on. I also like to assert my tertiary institution was the birthplace of said nonsensical tradition. So I feel an affinity for that tune, an, by extension, the bloke who sang it. So I was excited for the warm up act.

 

By the time old mate took to the stage, I had well and true gotten into the sugariest bottle of wine one can purchase at these kinds of events. I was ready to dance, and I didn’t care how many old people’s views I obstructed with my moves.

 

As an aside – why do people go to concerts if they’re not going to cut a rug? Bastards were sitting in their assigned white plastic chairs throughout the whole set like they were enduring a child’s Easter dramatization. It just strikes me as very odd that people would sit in chairs of a lesser quality than those plastic outdoor sets that get brought out at barbecues (at least those chairs have armrests!) to listen to music they won’t dance to and drink overpriced, watered down wine. And they were packed in so close to other people so that they were touching. How is that fun?

 

After the set, there was an opportunity for a quick meet’n’greet and when the announcement boomed over the PA system, it occurred to me that I could make someone semi-famous sign my canvas sneakers. I also thought the guy deserved some kind of recognition after he played a ripsnorter set to a bunch of sitting elderly people, so I grabbed two wines from the bar lined up with the middle-aged reformed groupies. I was the last in the line.

 

People ahead of me bought t shirts and CDs and asked for selfies. But I had a better plan. I ignored the repeated offers to pay merchandise for signing purposes and heavily plonked my foot onto the table. My request for a shoe signing was met with an amused reaction, rather than disgust.

 

I assumed we “got each other” because I had previously interviewed him over the phone about the Eagle Rock drop and because I was one of the only people who wasn’t too lazy and jaded to get up out of my seat and dance. I felt like I would have stood out. Plus I was also wearing these attention-seeking bright, floral high waisted shorts I love that practically set fire to retinas. I also dance like someone stuck in a seriously strong rip trying to fight the current, tread water to stay alive and grab the attention of life savers back on the beach. So of course he could see me from his prime vantage point onstage. He made some remark about me enjoying the music and I thought this was the perfect time to sink piss with an Australian icon no one would recognise on the street. I offered him one of my glasses of urine-warm, sugary wine, imagining it to be more like a child leaving a glass of milk for Santa.

 

Instead it was more like one of those foot lotion salespeople you see in the middle of shopping centre walkways. Only I was loud, sweaty and had reached my intolerably chirpy tipsy stage. What I thought would be a welcome, top-bloke gesture was actually just straight up heckling. At least I wasn’t wearing an apron.

 

At this point I was feeling pretty buzzy, so this is paraphrasing, but I think I have most of it right:

 

Me: I thought you would like some moscato. Do you want some?

 

Daddy Cool: I don’t really.

 

Me: No it’s ok. Have some. It’s terrible. You should have some. Drink it quickly.

 

Daddy Cool: Um ok.

 

*drinks wine

 

Me: *wipes sugar wine drool off mouth with hand, makes caveman exhale grunt hybrid

 

Me: See ya.

 

Me: *runs off. Again, a little hazy so let’s just pretend I didn’t run off talking to myself. I probably said something really witty.

 

 

I later posted an Instragram photo referencing this encounter with at least one grammatical error. It gained 18 likes in total.