Third Day Concert (Wavehouse @ Gateway 5th November 2009)
Last night we went to the wavehouse at Gateway for the Third Day concert and it was awesome! This whole experience was started when Carrie randomly googled Third Day and a result came up “Third Day South Africa” so naturally, being a fan and loving going to concerts, she clicked on the link and was very happy to see that they were coming to South Africa!
She did some further research and the concert was only a couple of weeks away! I am always cautious and was not really that keen but decided to go anyway because they are a really cool band to listen to and we have a number of their CD’s and we sing one of their older songs “King of glory” at church. I love that song and love singing it at church.
So we bought the tickets (only R150 – very good price), bought the latest CD and spread the word about the concert over the next couple of days. We had a mixed response from people. They ranged from “Who?” to ‘when are we buying the tickets – get we get them online!’ In the end there were five of us that went. We started with dinner at Circus Circus at gateway and moved onto the wave house shortly before the scheduled start at 8pm.
We thought that the supporting act was going to start at 8pm but we were surprised to see Third Day walkout at about ten past. Clearly we had missed the opening act – I was not too fazed about this because I really was not keen to see them – I bought Third Day tickets to see Third Day!
The concert itself was a mixture of their old and new stuff and they are very good to see live and the sound was very good indeed. I have been to concerts in which the sound it not very good at all but I / we were very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the sound and the lighting. About half an hour into the show they stopped playing and the lead singer spoke for a bit and then took us all by surprise and started asking for requests from the crowd!! When was the last time you heard of a band asking for requests and actually playing them too! They refused to play some only because they were planning to plan them later (fair enough to me). They did not play the whole song for the requests but most of them!
At about one hour and 15 minutes into the show they stopped again and Angus Buchan came on to talk to the crowd again (he was part of the opening act). Honestly I was very disappointed in the way he spoke and what he spoke about as well as the way he did it too. That’s my opinion though.
The talking did not last long though and soon enough the band was back onto rocking the place! They attempted a goodbye but well all know that the first good bye is never the last and they came out and did two or three more songs before leaving for good. The lead singer throughout the night threw his plectrum into the crowd and at the end the drummer threw his sticks into the crowd too which I thought was a very cool thing to do!
This was the first time in South Africa for the band to perform. The lead guitarist and drummer had been out before to help out with Habitat for humanity in building houses. The band flew from Atlanta to Sao Paulo Brazil to do a show there before leaving for Johannesburg and then Durban for their first show. I hope and pray that this is only the first of many trips to Durban in particular and to South Africa in general. What really struck me was the genuine nature of the guys – they are rock stars in their own right and have been part of the band for 17 years now but not once did I get the impression that the show was about them. As the lead singer said – they just enjoy doing what they are doing and are blessed to be able to do it. I also was so impressed to see the atmosphere in the place – there was no alcohol in the place and still the crowd got excited and really participated in the show. It was really good to see that. I would highly recommend going to see them live and would not hesitate in paying the money to do so.
Feeling like a pro!
It's not often that a recreational cyclist feels like a professional cyclist other than in big bunches in big races. In the last two weeks I have had that feeling twice and it's been a really cool thing to experience! The first was in the amashova fun ride as explained in the earlier entry (See Amashova 2009). The other was just last week and only dawned on me half way through the ride. I work full time and study part time so time on the bike is normally either in my garage on the stationary trainers or in the dark of early morning during the week or relatively early mornings on the weekend. Because I study - I get study leave for exams that I write. It's not all that much leave but I do get the opportunity to exercise during that period at times that most people normally are working i.e. after 8am.
Last week Friday (30th October 2009) was just such a day. I wrote an exam from 8am till just after nine. I went home and had decided to go cycling. The plan was organized such that my wife who works in toti would take a set of clothes with her to work and I would cycle to her office (at her parents' home) and get changed and chill for the afternoon. So that's what I did! It was a ride of about 39 km and a ride that I have done many times before. I altered the route a bit purely for lack of boredom! It was only about 25 km into the ride that I realized that everyone on the road with me in their cars are working and hating traffic! I was also hating traffic but for different reasons.
That's when I thought to myself - this is what a pro must feel like doing his job. Cycling around town during the day when everybody is working! It was a really cool feeling to know that an ordinary person such as myself can feel like a professional cyclist - even if it just for a brief moment in time.
Details of the ride:
Time: 1:46:24
Distance: 38.98 km
Average: 21.9 km/hr
Max: 64.7 km/hr
Sad news!!
I learnt some very sad news this morning - the passing of a dear old lady - Dawn Turner, aged 79. She had been sickly for a while. Our sympathy goes to her sister, Hope and son Terry and his family and all her family during this tragic time. She was a great lady and a real character right until the end. I know she is running and dancing pain free now!
I had the privilege of taking Dawn to church once or twice a month for a number of years and those times with Estelle and Mary in the car will always stay with me. An inspiration of character and fight they all are!
Amashova 2009
After much debate with my tandem partner (and wife, Carrie) as to whether we should do the race on the tandem, we came to the conclusion that we would only do the shorter fun ride of 38 km. As the time drew closer however, it was decided that Carrie that would not be able to do the race due to the lack of training. As I had been training on a fairly regular basis (mostly running) I decided to do the race of 38 km and just have some fun. I was not as fit as I would have liked but having cycled for about 8 years, I knew my legs could handle it as it was mostly downhill anyway. We had also discussed with my brother's father-in-law to give him a lift to the start - so I had a riding buddy to make it more enjoyable and have a good ride. The Friday before the race I learned that my riding buddy was not riding and it was going to be raining on the day!! That's not a good start to a very busy weekend and 38 km of cycling on my ace!! The weekend was crazy busy! On the Saturday, I had 2 hours of tax lectures until 1 pm. From there I raced to The Stadium Kings Park as a an avid Sharks supporter to watch the Currie cup semi-final at 14:30pm. that was just bad from the start and the Sharks got beaten in the final minutes by a drop goal. The only good thing about the rugby that day was the braai outside - the most amazing steak roll in the world as per usual from our friend Jaco. from the rugby, slightly drunk and more than slightly depressed we went to Camp Jonathan from the candlelight service of the women's Emmaus walk. It was a scary drive but we had a very good driver (Carrie) who got us there and back safely. It was a late night. The alarms started at 04h00!! Do I need to say more? More awake than I ever am to get up for work - the morning started as planned and we were on the road by 05h00 and reached the start at Hillcrest High School at about 05h30 for the 05h45 start. The start in terms of car traffic was absolute chaos and this was added to by the fact that the roads in hillcrest are pretty narrow. Add now about 600 to 800 cyclists trying to get out of cars, up the road and into the school - well = chaos!! Carrie parked the car (we were in my dads car because Rory (our Chery QQ) does not have a bike rack! we parked and I used the little bit of road as my warm up. The start was a batch start and I (somehow) was in batch A which was first off. The problem came in when the road was completely taken up by the fenced off batch areas in other words - I came from the back and could not get round to the front into batch A. Ideally there should be a little pathway with gaps in the fence to let people into the correct batches. The start actually happened on time which is a miracle in fun rides so we finally started. It was a rainy start but thank fully not that cold and I was quite far back in the batch by the time we got going. This only means that for the first 2 /3 km (in this race mainly up hill) you are dodging idiots on mountain bikes who cannot ride straight as well as the useless teenagers who thought it was a good idea to do 38 km on their BMX’s! Once on the main road though it was all go and I pushed it pretty hard at first but tried to save some in the tank for the last 5 km which is flat. Being a fun ride – no one gets a group going so it was all my own effort. Or so I thought! Got to the top of fields hill and I was moving pretty quickly as was passed easily by two tandems and a single bike hanging on to their wheel. I know I cannot keep up with tandems but tried anyway. Was really good fun coming down a hill like that at speeds over 65km/h without bothering about cars or other cyclists. By the time we got to the bottom of fields hill the tandems had disappeared and it was just me and the other single bike – turns out this guy was supposed to ride the veterans pro bunch in the long race but had twisted his ankle in the UK so he did not want to risk hurting it further with the long distance so he rode the shorter race instead. This guy being a pretty serious cyclist and me knowing what working together is – we worked together for quite a long stretch. Was really cool because I would pull for a bit and then him etc both just a flicking of the elbow to indicate the other to take over. We then picked another guy who just did not want to work with us and this is where I got it wrong. I pushed it too hard and had to just chill for a bit – this meant I lost the group and fell back. Thankfully there were only about 10 km to go. I just cruised at a decent speed without killing myself. About 1.5 km from the finish I was passed by two riders who were motoring and I knew how far the finish was and I also knew I could suffer for that long. I tagged along for a bit then about 300 m out I sprinted past them and over the finish line. Was a really nice race bar some annoying bits at the start and cars being on the “closed road”. So overall I think that it was a good race. as I said earlier - I would have like to have been fitter and able to keep up with my semi-pro vet friend but so be it. Monday morning was interesting – few unexpected injuries cropped up but they are finally going away and will back on the bike either this weekend or next week.
The overall stats were as follows (all off my cycling computer because fun rides are never officially timed!) Time: 1:04:32
Distance: 37.83 (officially 38 km)
Max Speed: 68.4 km/h (slow in terms of the hills involved)
Average speed: 35.1 km/h
A busy weekend!!!
The weekend of the 19 to 21 of Septmber 2008 was super busy for my wife and myself!
Friday 19th
It began on friday, when we drove to White Mountain in the central berg to meet up with my brother (Guy) and his wife (Sarah) who were out from the UK for a wedding. It was really nice to see them again even though it was only for such a short period of time. We drive up early (about 5:30am) from Durban to get the most out of the short time they were there.
Saturday 20th
This was a very action packed day!! After a very cold start at white mountain we drove back to Durban for my father-in-laws 50th birthday party that night. It was raining still but was not too bad. We had heard of snow falling on the southern berg and thought that we would miss it because we were too far north. We were wrong!!! Before the Mooi River toll plaza we drove into the snow. We stopped for lunch at Mooi River at the Wimpy and sat and watched the snow falling. It is the first time either of us had seen snow first hand.
We kept driving and the bulk of the snow was around the Nottingham Road area and was really awesome to see. We did not get out of the car and play in it as we were still cold from friday in White Mountain.
Saturday evening was an equally speciall occassion - my father-in-laws (Alan Payne) birthday party. Held at the Toti bowling club, it was an awesome evening with family and friends from all over the country. It was a combined event because Mike (Alans sister in laws boyfriend) and Alan share a brithday. There was a live band playing and everybody forgot about the weather outside and had a good time!!!
Thank you to the organisers for a great night!
Sunday 21st
The plan (for myself) was to get up and race in the Tour de Nando's from Suncoast casino in Durban to Scottburgh Country Club! The plans changed when i saw the weather was very wet and raining and a howling south wester (head wind). I turn over and went back to bed.
The rest of the day was spent talking to family and just chilling.
Thank you to all who made it an awesome weekend!!!!
Keep a look out for the photos!
Happy Bithday!!
Since the last time the page was updated we have had a few birthdays:
15 May Myself
11 July Carrie Laister
19 July Bev Payne (mother-in-law) - 50!!
22 September Alan Payne (father-in-law) - 50!!
Mike Rosch (extended family)
Shortly there will be photos of the happy occassions.
The last of the three Laister weddings!
Months and even years of planning, organized chaos, stress, fun and laughter came to an end at the end of March 2008 when the oldest Laister boy (Guy) got married. It marked the last of three weddings in 7 months. The trend was started with the youngest of the three, Murray, in August. The joy and organized chaos continued with me in November and came to a head with Guy on the 29th of March 2008.
