Jamie McDell (New Zealand singer/songwriter) offered to play at my wedding the other weekend! Which is a bit awkward, considering I'm not engaged. How the offer came about is one of the reasons I love living here.
When you MC an awards ceremony/anything in Auckland, it's rare that it isvery personal at all. You get up there, do your bit, try and make the lame script you've been given a little entertaining, eat your dinner hurriedly and leave. It's totally different in the Bay.
I recently hosted the BOP/Coromandel Surf Lifesaving Awards at Trinity Wharf and had a great time. Firstly, the staff at Trinity Wharf are masters of being invisibly ever-present! We had a three course meal and a bar and I swear I didn't see one of them, but ate and drank all night. Does that make me a snobby/bad person for not noticing them? Or does it mean they're masters at their job? A bit of both, probably!
Jamie McDell is an ambassador for Surf Lifesaving New Zealand, she's a member of the Pauanui club and spent some of last summer on the beach patrolling at Omanu. She sang (brilliantly) at the awards and we had a good yarn afterwards. That yarn would never happen at the big Auckland gigs - the artist would either leave or be too wrapped up in schmoozing the people they think can help them.
She noticed that my partner, Hayley, was clearly the 'better half' and asked why we weren't married. I think she offered to play at our wedding more out of sympathy for Hayley putting up with my smart mouth and fading looks (I am almost 31 now ). That's another thing that wouldn't happen up North, Hayley wouldn't get invited, a free meal and be welcomed as warmly as she was.
If I do get married, I might take Jamie up on her offer. After the awards I have enough fodder to blackmail her in to doing it for free. Though I would never do that...
- Will Johnston is host of The Hits 95FM Day Show. Live and local from 9am till 3pm, every weekday in the Bay of Plenty.
