Top Gear Live Auckland - 12th February 2009
Here's my report for Top Gear Live that I went to see last night in Auckland, it'll probably get pretty long and contain a lot of photos and videos.
We arrived down in Auckland at around half past five and the show started at half six so we went to Burger King to get a feed and then went to the showgrounds where it was being held. My brother had brought his "I am the Stig" t-shirt to wear but he chickened out of wearing it because he thought he would look like a dick and as my cousin said to him "It would be like wearing a t-shirt that said "I am Jesus" and walking into church".
After battling through the crowds and waiting in line for a while we found our seats, our seats were in row B and to the left of the stage so we were really close and had a great view. It took quite a while for everyone to get seated as they had ushers directing each person to their seats so the show didn't start until about quarter to seven. There were some live ads to start with, one for Shell which involved a van lifting up and an F1 car emerging from the bottom of it which was quite impressive and there was also one for Ford Mondeo which just involved a Mondeo hooning around the stage.
And then Richard and Jeremy came onto stage, Richard was driving a Porsche and Jeremy a Mercedes. They introduced the show and explained that James May wasn't there as when they arrived in New Zealand he had disappeared to K Rd and hadn't been seen since, they had a photoshopped picture of him dressed up in a mardi gras outfit. They also joked about the Stig being a New Zealander and showed a clip of him chasing after some sheep and said that he should be called "The Stug" instead.
Greg Murphy then made his entrance onto the stage in one of the Greg Murphy edition Holden Commodores. It had a personalised plate of "Murf 01" and Jeremy gave him shit about that and said with a personalised car and number plate he must have the smallest gentials in the world.
Video of his entrance,
Jeremy and Richard,
Greg Murphy,
After this there was the "Top Gear Stunt Driving Team" which were four Suzuki Swifts which did some impressive maneuvers on the stage. Once they had finished they showed a clip of Jeremy driving the Peel 50 and then they went on to say they had a challenge to make a car even smaller than that and race them between themselves.
Richard's was some sort of childs bike mounted onto sandpaper wheels, Greg's was a suitcase which folded out,inside the suitcase was a pink bikini and some furry handcuffs and Greg joked that he had used James May's suitcase to make it. Jeremy's car was fashioned out of some cowboy boots,jeans and a shirt and it was a car that you wore, it also had a mini sort of jet engine to power it.
They had a race around the stage, it was three laps I think, Richard's car broke and the steering wheel fell off which caused it to just go around in circles, Greg fell out of his car and then tried to start it again without him in it and it shot across the stage away from it and Jeremy won of course. So Richard and Greg had to suffer their punishments for losing.
Richard and his steering wheel,
Richard's punishment was to have a motorbike jump over him and then be "parked up his buttcrack"
He didn't enjoy that too much,
They then introduced the "Colander of Death" which was a big circular metal cage which the guy on the motorbike drove around inside,it was really impressive! Greg Murphy's punishment was to stand inside the Colander of Death while the guy drove around inside.
Greg Murphy then removed himself from the cage and they introduced another motorbike which drove around inside with the first one but it got more impressive because they then introduced a 3rd and 4th motorbike and it ended up with four motorbikes all driving around inside at the same time,it was so nuts!
I'm pretty sure that after this there was a display by a Holden Commodore and a dancer with a stick, the dancer just did some moves while the Commodore drove around her as Jeremy said when they came back on stage "by adding a dancer we turned just a car hooning around into theatre". Then it was time for the cool wall!
Jeremy and Richard then went and stood up in the audience where Jeremy found Jesus who happened to drive a BMW. They had given out cards that were green on oneside and red on the other so you held them up to vote if a car was cool or uncool. I got confused and thought that green was cool and red was uncool when really it was the other way around. So they brought out a variety of nice cars including,
After the cool wall a drum set that had been made from various parts from cars was brought out and some drummer (his name escapes me) had a bit of a play on it.
They then introduced a new game that they had invented which was pretty much ten pin bowling using a shopping trolley. Greg Murphy got into the shopping trolley and the golf cart that was behind it was replaced with a Ford Mustang and Jeremy got behind the wheel....
After this they had the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. They showed a little montage of various celebs going around the course,I got excited about the fact they had a clip of David Tennant yelling "speed up!" from when he did his lap. Then they showed more footage of a real time lap of the track done by attaching a camera to the car driving around it just so we could get a feel for what the track was actually like. The audience then did the lap which was done by using noise to accerlate the car and the red and green cards to turn it. Our laptime wasn't too great, Jeremy took a photo of a member of the audience to represent us (it was some women with a lot of cleavage), they showed us some other photos on the board and they were all of womens legs or breasts haha.
They then had a little car soccer game between New Zealand and England, Greg Murphy captained the NZ team while Richard was the captain of the English team and Jeremy was the ref.
The last segment involved the Stig, they showed another little clip of Jeremy trying to dodge the Apache helicopter and then the Stig came out and got into a Lotus Exige. He had to avoid the Apache Helicopter shooting at the car, this was done by having a 3D Helicopter (I'm stupid and lost my 3D glasses so couldn't experience the 3Dness of it) and the Stug drove around and there were explosions which was fun.
And then it was all over,
It was such a great show and it was awesome to see Richard and Jeremy in person.
We arrived down in Auckland at around half past five and the show started at half six so we went to Burger King to get a feed and then went to the showgrounds where it was being held. My brother had brought his "I am the Stig" t-shirt to wear but he chickened out of wearing it because he thought he would look like a dick and as my cousin said to him "It would be like wearing a t-shirt that said "I am Jesus" and walking into church".
After battling through the crowds and waiting in line for a while we found our seats, our seats were in row B and to the left of the stage so we were really close and had a great view. It took quite a while for everyone to get seated as they had ushers directing each person to their seats so the show didn't start until about quarter to seven. There were some live ads to start with, one for Shell which involved a van lifting up and an F1 car emerging from the bottom of it which was quite impressive and there was also one for Ford Mondeo which just involved a Mondeo hooning around the stage.
And then Richard and Jeremy came onto stage, Richard was driving a Porsche and Jeremy a Mercedes. They introduced the show and explained that James May wasn't there as when they arrived in New Zealand he had disappeared to K Rd and hadn't been seen since, they had a photoshopped picture of him dressed up in a mardi gras outfit. They also joked about the Stig being a New Zealander and showed a clip of him chasing after some sheep and said that he should be called "The Stug" instead.
Greg Murphy then made his entrance onto the stage in one of the Greg Murphy edition Holden Commodores. It had a personalised plate of "Murf 01" and Jeremy gave him shit about that and said with a personalised car and number plate he must have the smallest gentials in the world.
Video of his entrance,
Click to viewJeremy and Richard,
Greg Murphy,
After this there was the "Top Gear Stunt Driving Team" which were four Suzuki Swifts which did some impressive maneuvers on the stage. Once they had finished they showed a clip of Jeremy driving the Peel 50 and then they went on to say they had a challenge to make a car even smaller than that and race them between themselves.
Richard's was some sort of childs bike mounted onto sandpaper wheels, Greg's was a suitcase which folded out,inside the suitcase was a pink bikini and some furry handcuffs and Greg joked that he had used James May's suitcase to make it. Jeremy's car was fashioned out of some cowboy boots,jeans and a shirt and it was a car that you wore, it also had a mini sort of jet engine to power it.
They had a race around the stage, it was three laps I think, Richard's car broke and the steering wheel fell off which caused it to just go around in circles, Greg fell out of his car and then tried to start it again without him in it and it shot across the stage away from it and Jeremy won of course. So Richard and Greg had to suffer their punishments for losing.
Richard and his steering wheel,
Richard's punishment was to have a motorbike jump over him and then be "parked up his buttcrack"
He didn't enjoy that too much,
They then introduced the "Colander of Death" which was a big circular metal cage which the guy on the motorbike drove around inside,it was really impressive! Greg Murphy's punishment was to stand inside the Colander of Death while the guy drove around inside.
Greg Murphy then removed himself from the cage and they introduced another motorbike which drove around inside with the first one but it got more impressive because they then introduced a 3rd and 4th motorbike and it ended up with four motorbikes all driving around inside at the same time,it was so nuts!
I'm pretty sure that after this there was a display by a Holden Commodore and a dancer with a stick, the dancer just did some moves while the Commodore drove around her as Jeremy said when they came back on stage "by adding a dancer we turned just a car hooning around into theatre". Then it was time for the cool wall!
Jeremy and Richard then went and stood up in the audience where Jeremy found Jesus who happened to drive a BMW. They had given out cards that were green on oneside and red on the other so you held them up to vote if a car was cool or uncool. I got confused and thought that green was cool and red was uncool when really it was the other way around. So they brought out a variety of nice cars including,
After the cool wall a drum set that had been made from various parts from cars was brought out and some drummer (his name escapes me) had a bit of a play on it.
They then introduced a new game that they had invented which was pretty much ten pin bowling using a shopping trolley. Greg Murphy got into the shopping trolley and the golf cart that was behind it was replaced with a Ford Mustang and Jeremy got behind the wheel....
After this they had the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. They showed a little montage of various celebs going around the course,I got excited about the fact they had a clip of David Tennant yelling "speed up!" from when he did his lap. Then they showed more footage of a real time lap of the track done by attaching a camera to the car driving around it just so we could get a feel for what the track was actually like. The audience then did the lap which was done by using noise to accerlate the car and the red and green cards to turn it. Our laptime wasn't too great, Jeremy took a photo of a member of the audience to represent us (it was some women with a lot of cleavage), they showed us some other photos on the board and they were all of womens legs or breasts haha.
They then had a little car soccer game between New Zealand and England, Greg Murphy captained the NZ team while Richard was the captain of the English team and Jeremy was the ref.
The last segment involved the Stig, they showed another little clip of Jeremy trying to dodge the Apache helicopter and then the Stig came out and got into a Lotus Exige. He had to avoid the Apache Helicopter shooting at the car, this was done by having a 3D Helicopter (I'm stupid and lost my 3D glasses so couldn't experience the 3Dness of it) and the Stug drove around and there were explosions which was fun.
And then it was all over,
It was such a great show and it was awesome to see Richard and Jeremy in person.