by Lina Kvist

I came from Sweden to see this and to do some other stuff, so it was a cool experience for me.

The tickets didnt sell that well to start with, so they changed venues to a smaller one. Because of that, there was general admission, so why not be there two hours early? Theres always some other nut-case you can talk to. I found one. A lovely chick called Tineth. We had a laff anyway.

We got the best seat in the house. But people didnt start showing up until 7:45, the place filled up quite quickly after that.

Some guy in the audience yelled out: "I love you!" "I love you too," Neil replied. Without missing a beat, he added: "... but I won't go home with you."

Two guys (thank God for those!) stood up and danced around. The guards stopped them, and in the middle of a song, Neil says: "I reckon they're alright." So they danced some more and the guards tried stopping them, but all of us in the audience jumped up and ran to the stage. MAN what a show after that, nothing like in Christchurch, where people sat down and clapped for ten seconds to "I Got You!" Here, people went BANANAS! Jumped up and down... it was a good workout session standing up front dancing, singing, and feeling your adrenaline rush through your body!! THAT was a show like no other... Ive never been to a show like that one... the energy... the crowd went crazy.

Neil said four times: "You are sooooo nice to me!" Everybody screamed and talked to him between songs, and if you wanted to say something, you had your chance. One bizarre girl said: "I got a Split Enz tattoo!" (She just did that to get his attention, she said afterwards). So he said: "Its a dragon, isnt it?" (It was.) Bizarre.

Afterwards, a bunch of us waited outside to speak to Neil and to congratulate him on his first show. Out comes Sam Neill... surprised the heck outta me. Then Neil comes out being totally wonderful and friendly and grateful to the people out there. He said again, "You were so nice to me." I asked if he was nervous, and he admitted, smiling, that he had been. It felt good having been part of such a GREAT crowd.

Anyway, just wanted to say how great the crowd was, and THANK YOU to those people who came and made the show so great for Neil by being so into it. Thanks so much everyone who was in Dunedin.