"Whenever I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story." - Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother.

Every now and again I nick off to Queensland for a few days. There's always an official pretext to the trip, but the main point of these south-eastern sojourns is to prove to myself that I'm still every bit as awesome as I was in my uni days. As time passes (and it does, I assure you) it's a claim that's becoming more and more difficult to substantiate.

Recently even the pretext has been becoming increasingly predictable; an old friend will do something silly like get married and I'll trip off to Brisbane to attend the ceremony and concurrently catch some sort of international music act. Last time, I popped east for a wedding and a U2 concert. Last weekend I went for a wedding and found by complete coincidence that New Zealand rock sensation Six60 were playing at The Zoo on Anne st. I'm sure the Six60 boys won't mind me saying it; U2 in Suncorp Stadium is not quite the same thing as Six60 in a converted community hall in Fortitude Valley, but that's not the point. The point is something closer to the incredible coincidence of being in Brisbane for less than twelve hours and yet timing it so perfectly that I got to hang out with Chris for a few hours and finally hear the band live. A coincidence which was further compounded when we discovered that as well as staying in Brisbane at the same time, we were also staying at the same motel.

I've never really imagined myself as the 'I'm with the band' type (That's probably because I rather fancifully imagine myself as the 'I'm in the band' type). Hanging out with Chris backstage after the show I got to experience the crazy collision of worlds that happens when you're chatting with friends like old times but you have your conversation interrupted periodically by fans asking for autographs.

A particularly enthusiastic pair of followers claimed to be Six60's biggest fans ever. They passed a band shirt around and asked us all to sign it. I was confused, but willing enough to oblige her. If she was as big a fan as she claimed, she might have realised she had more signatures on her shirt than Six60 has members, but I guess we'll never know.

In true rock and roll style, after loading the gear into a white mini van (hell yeah!) we continued celebrating a great show into the small hours of the morning. This was another great way for me to demonstrate that I'm still awesome, despite having taken my newly discovered I'm-with-the-bandism to the level of actually impersonating said band to it's own fans.

It was also a really stupid idea because I needed to be up ridiculously early the next morning to meet my lift to the wedding. It was a morning ceremony and lunch time reception in a town several hours' drive from Brisbane. I set my alarm for half past four to make sure I had enough time to get ready and catch a train to rendezvous with my friend at six.