What's grits anyway?

I'm not going to say it was the last one.  Because, as Martin has told me many many time - bands don't break up these days.  The Grits have got a gig booked with a different guitarist some time next year already. And some day we will be coming home.

But Friday night was the last Hot Grits gig Martin will get a chance to play before we go.

I'm a horrible wife, and I used to be a horrible girlfriend.  The last Hot Grits gig I went to was at the Parihaka Festival.  In January. And, oh wow.  Parihaka.  Look at this - the Hot Grits are playing just after 2 minutes in.





I've been to quite a few festivals with the Grits but this was far and away the best.  Really peaceful.  A whole, family atmosphere - kids running around and food smells everywhere. 

The landscape in that area is formed by lahars that have spilled out of the caldera of Taranaki over thousands of years.  It is as if the land is so impressed by its own provenance that it has gooseflesh.  There are little bumpy hillocks rising out of the ground all over the place, and at the area where the Parihaka settlement was the mounds are everywhere and close together. You can't really see the hill bumps, but you can see the volcano (and a comet) in the background of this old postcard.

I'm easily impressed by geology.  If you don't know much about the story of Parihaka, I recommend giving this a read.  We hear a lot about the history of New Zealand's wars, and Parihaka is an inspiring though heart-breaking story about New Zealand's revolutionary thinkers, striving to bring peace in a time of great turmoil.

Anyway - Friday night - Khuja Lounge.   And I'm so glad, also, that it was at Khuja Lounge.  It was the right place.  It's a small place and it was filled with friends. I, who normally avoid parties put on my brave face and DRANK and had a really wonderful time. Even if it was Friday night, and my general stance on Friday night gigs is that they shouldn't be allowed.  Who has the energy to go out at midnight after a week of working?  (People with access to drugs, you say. To which I respond - my drug of choice is SLEEP.  You people are insane!)

Does anybody have a picture of the tap?  Martin was holding my phone at tap presentation time.

Here's the best picture I got of the band with my crummy iPhone camera.

Well.  Half of the band.