| Dear Diary, TAHUNA BREAKS... |
| Written by Kelsey Serjeant |
| Wednesday, 16 September 2009 08:24 |
 I work in an office, where sneaking out early is not something done. Ever. There is extensive planning required and a large adrenalin rush when the lift doors finally shut and you know you are safe. Last Friday afternoon at 3.30PM, my exit was hopefully unnoticed and at least nobody said; "oh, Kelsey, one more thing that needs to go out the door today...". For the last few weeks this has been my game. Do lawyering (sleepily, lazily, not so well) by day, drive very fast to sound checks in the evening and finally the music starts... Back to Friday afternoon, en-route to the Coromandel, I contemplated how working two jobs was worth every bit when music took me to two small towns on beautiful coastlines - Whitianga and Raglan - and also gave me the chance to give a few people a hot sweaty night of funk and reggae. No matter how many gigs we do, I always get a kick out of seeing the grinning faces of people caught in that musical moment with me. Any weekend on tour with Tahuna Breaks has its blow-outs. On tour last year, we forgot to shut the door on our trailer and had two guitars fall out onto State Highway 1 near Taupo. No-one realised until we were 100km further down the road so we turned around and it became a treasure hunt of "spot the guitar in the dark". Last weekend was less dramatic - during sound check at Whitianga the bass amp blew. Turned out a fuse was blown, only minutes before our set. Thankfully our resourceful techie managed to fix it with a paper clip. The next morning the van keys went missing and finally showed up in someone's jeans. It's become a tradition to swim at every location we visit on tour. So while we waited for the keys to be found we jumped off the wharf, rapidly becoming purple and shrivelled in the southerly wind. (I'm not looking forward to the Wanaka gig in this respect, the lake is apparently never even remotely warm!) This weekend takes us to Tokomaru Bay, a place I haven't visited since I was a kid. Te Puka Tavern is right on the coast of the mighty East Cape. I think with a weekend of music, the ocean, conversation with new faces and a beer, I'll be pretty quickly forgetting about my time sheets and To-Do list! Kelsey Serjeant plays saxophone in funk/reggae band TAHUNA BREAKS. Tahuna Breaks have just released their second album 'Black Brown and White' and are currently touring New Zealand. |
