Betchadupa
Marystaple, and ElemenoP Indigo Bar, Wellington, New Zealand March 26th 2002
Although i have seen some supremely good live shows this year, this Betchadupa show, has to certainly stand out for high energy rock performances. This was certainly one of the shows to attend, and well attended it was, with Indigo mostly filled eager punters, there to see the ‘dupa boys play.
Marystaple where the first band I had the joy of viewing, since I had seen one song by ElemenoP and decided that going home for a little while longer and a cup of tea was not a bad idea… after that cup of tea we returned to see Marystaple suitably rocking the place. Not bad for a band that was once a rockquest winning act. the crowd was keen as these boys pulled out the songs from their new album, which was released monday.
Joe played a cool wee slap bass riff while Betchadupa set up…something that tonight, in particular seemed to take a while. After about 40 minutes, Liam, Chris, Matt, and Joe took the stage, and introduced themselves to the crowd by belting out “Man on my Left”… a song which i feel doesn’t inspire my companion Lisa very much after spending a whole day listening to it when she was in the video shoot at Chris Garlands flat (the man on my left video)
This song was quickly followed by the equally rocking number, “Awake”, which was the first single off the 3D EP…
On a side note… earlier that evening my flatmates had much fun with the 3d glasses which come with the EP. Next up was “Drowning” ahh liam looked up to the ceiling while playing this drenched in green and blue light… After that the crowd was treated to some songs off the new album Alphabetchadupa, which incidentally entered the charts this week at number 2.
Next followed the beautiful “Life will be the Same”and then came “Sleepy News”, (the song with the”I try so hard to not offend but fuck you too lyric) excellent… by now the crowd was more amped than before… which is saying something… then “Filthy McNasty”… a good wee song, which liam told the crowd had something to do with Jerry Springer….
liam then thanked the crowd for buying the album…
after this Liam told the crowd about “Rain”, the next song… which was about cold wet days… somewhat appropriate for tonight… it was pissing down outside… then some stupid big drunk guy and his skanky girlfriend pushed in my way, and started yelling at liam… which in typical finn fashion liam replied with witty sarcasm. He dedicated the next song to people with dogs… the song “feed the dogs”, is really really lovely to see played live… following this “Bits” an excellent, VERY short, but totally rocking number. And then their hit single from the self titled ep, which was “Empty head”…
the only real down point of the whole crowd was the hordes of semi-underage girlies at the front who all have dreams of liam being their next husband.The band churned out their “happy” rock anthem “Supa Day”… Liam announced this was their last song, but in typical Betchadupa form… they continued on and played “Drop D”… I neeeeever want to leeeet gooooooooooo! Liam announced this song, as their cover song for the night, which was by K’lee.(a very vrey crap new zealand pop star).. he said that she wanted to call it something about a placenta, but he thought she should have called it “Drop D” ahhh after a very brief wait, they returned to the stage for an encore which was the song they recorded for the flying nun 21st anniversary album… outerspace by the 3D’s.