PERHAPS THE STRANGEST GIG IN HISTORY

Take note of the time. What could possibly go wrong?

As I write this, you're dealing with a desperate man.

Desperate for answers, for explanations. Desperate for clarity. Desperate for guidance. Possibly in need of a hug. Most definitely, and most desperately of all, badly in need of sleep.

If you're a regular reader of these humble glogs, you'll be well aware I spend much, if not most of my life in a state of confusion. But today I take the definition of confusion to new heights. Everest-like heights. Fearless Felix Baumgartner jumping-from-a-balloon-on-the-edge-of-space heights. I think you'll agree, those are pretty high heights.

The sheer altitude of my confusion stems from 2 things; a severe lack of sleep and the ultimate cause of that lack.

No need to be confused about the lack of sleep. 3 hours is not enough. For anyone. Not even for an old person. Nearly 39 isn't really old - although after just 3 hours kip, it FEELS very old indeed.

So that's straight-forward then; not enough sleep causes confusion (and possibly oldness) but the real question is the OTHER thing. Why? Why so little sleep? Here I have few answers.

I know it has something to do with Ben Harper though. 

It seemed like a simple proposition at the inception; An Acoustic Evening With Ben Harper, 7:30 Monday night, Aotea Centre - at least, that's what the ticket promised anyway. An acoustic evening, an early start... What could be more civilised? What could possibly go wrong?

Firstly, just because the ticket clearly says 7:30PM, there's no real way of knowing when Ben will take the stage. Oh, the doors opened shortly after 7:30, but obviously that would've been a crazy time for Mr. Harper to start playing. He's much more of an 8 o'clock guy, right? Nope. 8:30? Guess again. At 8:45 I'm starting to think this is one of the longest concerts I've never been to. Apparently, 75 minutes is pretty much the optimum time to make your audience sit around with nothing else to do before you finally take the stage.

Oh, did I say NOTHING else to do? Well that's wildly inaccurate because clearly you have 2 excellent alternatives while waiting for the lights to go down. 1: With the help of your smart-phone, you can ignore who you came with, hard out. Or 2: You can get steadily pissed.

The great thing about option 1: is, you can keep it up all night. Start off slow... maybe a few texts... one or two sneaky emails, the mandatory Facebook update. The important thing here is to avoid verbal communication with your date in any form whatsoever - in fact, if you can avoid eye-contact, even better. Obviously you can still Direct Message them, as long as you don't look like you arrived together, or that you even know each other. After the show actually begins, (IF it begins) you can really ramp things up. Keep texting, obviously. That's the best way to annoy that idiot to the other side of you who seems to be trying to actually ENJOY THE SHOW. What a loser. I bet he only "friends" people he knows. In person. Weirdo.

Oh, and don't forget to video EVERYTHING. How else are you supposed to remember what happened? Don't worry about those other nerds behind you who might find it a bit distracting having to view what's on stage through the screen of your phone, they're probably clicking off a quick "selfy" to prove they were actually there anyway. It doesn't matter that you'll never actually end up showing anyone your videos, at least you can post them on Youtube so someone on the other side of the world can criticise your camera skills in a foreign language. The important thing is to be using your phone in some way for at least 95% of the evening - make sure it's all charged before you leave the house.

Option 2: Drinking. Sadly, at most events I've been to at most theatres, you can only get stuck into the booze pre-show and at half-time. Luckily Ben Harper gives you a good hour and a half's drinking time to really take the edge off. This may mean a few extra trips to the loo during the first half, but who cares, right? And when I say trips, I do mean physically tripping over everybody in your row, there and back.

But here's the totally awesome thing...

At An Acoustic Evening With Ben Harper, the bars stayed open THE WHOLE TIME BABY! This meant you could get genuinely munted, all night long. Although obviously you'd require many, MANY more "trips" ALL NIGHT LONG. But who cares, right?

I myself must have been out of my head because I could swear there were at least 12 different guitars on stage, not mention the beat-up piano and what appeared to be an actual vibraphone. Here's the really weird thing about being as drunk as I must have been (I was probably as drunk as the other audience members who kept shouting things like, "Love you, Ben!" and hooting, "CHER-HOO!" Samoan slap-dancing style) being that drunk caused me to believe Harper actually PLAYED most of those guitars, a lot of the time with them just sitting on his lap.

The piano definitely got beat up again, and as for the vibraphone, (or was it a marimba? No, I'm really hoping it was a vibraphone) in my delirium, Harper appeared to be playing the blues on it. While singing. No, that couldn't really have happened, could it?

Reality really just wafted away as the show continued, kind of the same way dozens of patrons WANDERED away - only to get more beers though. They mostly came back, usually clasping about 2 more plastic cups than a sober person would attempt, sloshing much of the contents over the rest of the people in the row. But who cares, right? 

What a night. A night to remember. (As long as you videoed it, of course) Sadly, it all came to an end too soon, a mere 2 hours and 45 minutes after it hadn't started.

Except, it didn't. Sure 10:15 rolled round and Ben waved everyone goodnight and left the stage - but this was just that massively out-of-it guy in the front row's cue to rark everyone into a frenzied demand for an encore, which he managed to sustain for an amazingly long time given how out of focus he was appearing to himself.

Yay! Eventually Ben was back, beating that poor, unsuspecting piano once more. Half an hour later he was still back and things began to feel more like a second half than an encore. But that couldn't be right - if the break had been a genuine interval, the lights would have come up so we could find our way to the... bar... ah, now the "We Never Close" policy REALLY started making sense. My suspicions of a surprise second half were confirmed around 11, when Ben gave those with babysitters permission to head home as we were only, "Just into the 3rd quarter."

What a legend. What a night. What the hell? I went home.

I've never left a concert before the end. As far as I know, he's still playing. As far as I know, the "CHER-HOO!"ers are still drinking. Not bad for a Monday night. You can see how a bloke could get confused though. So tired.

You can never have too many of these at the theatre. Right? RIGHT?