I’ve done some fucking dumb things in my time as a music reviewer. And this might have been the dumbest. The show was obviously not for me – not only was it Hot Chelle Rae but someone called Cher Lloyd was opening. I had to look both up and pretend to be interesting. I stood there like a saw thumb while tweens were killed softly with these songs.

It was shit. Utter shit. And I reckon I did just fine summing it up the only way I could:

Nashville pop chart- throbs Hot Chelle Rae performed in New Zealand earlier this year, opening for Taylor Swift. This was their first Wellington performance. And the screams of tweens were almost deafening, meaning the popcorn- crunch of this mallrat muzak could almost slip by unnoticed to begin with. It seemed to exist only to provide stop-start spaces for more fan-screaming. Oh, and product-placement shoutouts to YouTube and Skype and various clothing brands. Take The Jonas Brothers and One Direction and squeeze them together. Give them brilliant new names like Nash Overstreet (seriously, that’s the guitarist’s name) and stick-blend the music of Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne (or Grandma, as the Hot Chelle Rae boys call her) and Good Charlotte. Layer in the smug Matrix songwriting styles that create vacuous hot-selling pop anthems for many of the already named – and other usual – suspects. And get texting. That’s the recipe. And the results include powerful song- statements like Whatever and Honestly. “Do any of you have an evil ex-girlfriend or evil ex-boyfriend?” asked lead singer Ryan Follese. Girls with only one digit in their age screamed to testify, hands surging towards the sky. Cellphones snapped tomorrow’s Tumblr images. This song was about their whole life. And so was that one. And the one before. And the one before. And the one that comes next. It was like, OMG, how amazing that these High School Musical and Glee-spliced musicians could know so much. And as the night surged on, one anthemic teen moment encapsulated for what felt like, oh, um, just like forever. At the back of the hall a line of parents waited, some gave each other the Fight Club nod, “you and I both know that this is happening – let’s never speak of it”. Others joined in with silly dancing, sure to get a telling off from the little princess on the ride home. Naughty chauffeur! The ticket could have said “may contain traces of music”. That would have been helpful.

Another day, another gig I never should have been at written up, written of…so what was so bad about this one? Why was I so dumb? In the interests of helping out, being a reviewer, seeking a crumb of a wage, I agreed to stay on and review this on a night when we were to travel home, show off the not even one-year-old baby to the grandparents. But first I’d review this show – I ripped home, wrote it up, hit send, packed the car. Woke the baby – slipped him into the car seat. And we headed off – around 11pm.

I nearly rode the car into a ditch a few hours later. Had to stop and drink a revolting McD’s coffee on the side of the road around 2am. And then carry on. One of the dumbest things I ever did.

And when we got there. Falling to pieces, ready for us much sleep as we could muster – of course Oscar woke up. Full of beans and ready to start the day!
Stubs is an occasional feature here at Off The Tracks – looking back through the ticket-stub box and remembering how the show went down.