Christmas and New Year

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, Smirnoff Ten were cooking pasta and sauce because they had spent all of their monthly budget and were poor as church mice.

Nice church mice with bonnets and long eyelashes and no inclinations to thieve cheese from the local 7/11, but skint critters nonetheless.

So vats of pasta were produced and washed down with diet coke and then out into the night they scurried in search of merriment and Christmas spirit and getting into places for free.

Thankfully, they had found larger creatures to adopt them on Christmas Day and Steph, Kareem and Luiza bounded to Bondi Beach for an all day BBQ bonanza with a rabble of English types they met in a bar.

After sausages and Smirnoff for Christmas Day, New Years Eve was a different beast altogether. Smirnoff had bought five of the ten tickets to see Groove Armada on Bondi Beach. After Boxing Day together, the Ten split in half (with five flying to Melbourne) and the remaining five soldiered on to Bondi for the massive event, managing to slope right to the front of the stage and set up residency there.

Aussie favourites Sneaky Sound System kicked things off, stomping through some sing-a-long classics and managing to draw the vast masses milling around various fairground rides and tents, towards the stage. This magnetism was continued by Bob Sinclair’s energetic mixes until the countdown for 2008 bound the crowd together in a rip tide of flailing energy and set the foundations for an amazing set from Groove Armada. The Smirnoff Five led the way from stage front with Kareem’s wide arms conducting the crowd as his orchestra, Takeshi hoisting screaming females onto his shoulders and John, Steph and Audette stomping around them like possessed woodland elves.

Without even considering the amazing performances and huuuuge scale sound and light systems, NYE 07 was unbeatable. The atmosphere was electric and for the Smirnoffers hailing from the more freezing, wet and windy corners of the globe, experiencing NYE under twinkly skies and in front of crashing waves was incredible. It was also the first NYE they had had as part of their new adventure and even if they had to survive on pasta for the next 12 months, being in sunny climes with their new Smirnoff family would always make up for it.