What I Got: On Tour with Sublime in Australia & New Zealand
Article & Photos: Carter McCall
Back out on the highway… well, more like the motorway; Sublime is fresh off their 2 week long tour down under for their first ever shows in Australia and New Zealand. I had the pleasure of traveling with the band, which was nothing short of an opportunity of a lifetime, it’s not everyday that you get to film your favorite band in your favorite countries.
The tour kicked off in Melbourne, with local legends ‘Skegss’ opening up for the Australian shows, setting the tempo just right, and even brought Zane Vandevort (Guitarist for Sublime) up to play “Under the Thunder” with them. Sublime returned the favor later that night, with Benny Reed (singer for Skegss) joining Sublime for “What I Got”. People moshed, crowd-surfed, and skanked throughout the show, making the band feel right at home while on the other side of the world. The band was fueled by the energy and adrenaline of the crowd, setting the vibe of the tour with pure stoke.
While in Melbourne, Trey Pengborn, Dennis Mcgivern, Kevin Zinger, Zane and myself linked up with the Hazza twins at the Urban Surf Wave Pool for a beer fueled session of offshore concrete bottom lefts just outside of the city. Jakob, Zane, Max Grey, Mikey Patterson, and myself spent the night before and of the show checking out the local night life, with our favorite spot being The Heartbreaker, a punk-rock dive bar with pool tables, that served individual slices of pizza until 2AM!
The next scheduled show was the Byron Bay Bluesfest, which was unfortunately cancelled just weeks before the tour. In turn, the flights got rebooked to go directly to Sydney, giving us a few extra days there, which we spent adventuring around. We spent a lot of time walking and eating all around Chinatown, and even rented some Lime Bikes and rode from our hotel in Darling Harbor to the Sydney Opera House.
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The crowd in Sydney was by far the best of the entire tour. During the intro of Wrong Way, you couldn’t even hear Jakob singing, as every fan in the audience was screaming the lyrics word for word. They ended playing All You Need instead of Same in the End, which which they ended up doing for the remainder of the shows, a decision that I was fully behind with Robbin the Hood being my favorite Sublime album. Jakob also did a solo performance of Saw Red that night, which had the core fans in a chokehold.
The Australian run of shows came to a wholesome end, with our last day spent in Cronulla, where Aaron Girgis made the crew an amazing Easter Lunch and took us to surf at a sweet local beachie, with some boards loaned to us by iconic Australian shaper Dylan Longbottom
Our first stop in New Zealand was Christchurch, where we had a few days of downtime that were spent relaxing, getting tattoos at New Zealand Tattoo, hitting the pokies at the casino, and shooting a few games of pool at The Rockpool Bar. The first show set the pace of the New Zealand shows to be more tame, with a crowd full of people captivated by the music.
Auckland was nothing short of amazing; after settling in at the hotel Jakob, Zane, Max, Mike and myself made our way over to Peha Beach, where we checked out the surf and got dinner at the lifesaving club, which overlooked some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. The day after we went to a few different radio shows for appearances, as well as Grinding Gears Games, which is where Jakob’s favorite video game Path Of Exile.
The show that night was at the coolest makeshift venue, the Trusts Arena was this huge gymnasium with a stage put on one side and elevated bleachers for seated tickets. The green rooms lined a baseball pitching trainer, and right outside was both a soccer and rugby pitch, which made a great time to kick around the soccer ball, and enjoy the best sunset we saw the whole trip.
The last stop of the tour was in Wellington, which was my favorite destination we had been to. The entire city wrapped around this bay and climbed the hillside, reminding me of a bigger Avalon or Morro Bay. We flew in the same day of the show, and the venue was this entire compound of fun. Go Karts, Breweries, Bowling, Ice Skating, Paintball, an arcade, you name it!! The set that night was bittersweet, and we ended the trip taking a tour around the Weta Studios, which is the Special Effects company for game of thrones!
With the tour being the longest the band has been on the road throughout the second coming, mostly everyone was exhausted and ready to go home. On the other hand, I felt like I was just getting started, I could have gone another year, which in some ways is what happened;
I got asked to join the band for the remaining shows they have this year, something that I never thought would have happened. Between getting to hear my favorite songs of all time every night, hanging out with really amazing humans, and having a beer here and there, it just really doesn’t get much better for me. Well, thanks for reading, and if you haven’t already go ahead and subscribe to Yuth Mag, or else!!
