Eight “Whale”

2001-eight-whaleEight were a five-piece band that had a big rocky sound, with rather emo-style lyrics. Their first video “Whale” intrigues me.

On a remote rural road, a young man walks up to an intersection. YouTube uploader NZboi says it was filmed on location at Waitakaruru/Pipiroa – the flat, swampy farmland by the Firth of Thames.

The guy looks like a traveller, someone who’s out to walk the earth and find himself. But the intersection might as well be a roadblock as he seems completely unable to decide whether to turn left or right. Kids, this is what life was like before Google Maps.

A tractor passes from the left; a car containing the rock band Eight passes from the right. But that doesn’t simplify the choice to merely agriculture vs rock. The traveller seems even more confused. OMG, he could turn left OR he could turn right. This is worse than an old lady in Starbucks who just wants “a coffee”.

Finally the dithering backpacker pulls out a coin – one of the giant old 50c pieces – and flips it. After a dramatic slowmo spin, the coin ends up wedged on its side in the tarseal, neither left nor right.

Still unable to choose a side, the dude follows the direction the coin is pointing in. He sprints forward and dives in a muddy ditch across the road. Up to this point, I was getting pretty fed up with the indecisiveness, seeing the traveller suddenly sprint off into the dirty water was a brilliant twist and I was cheering him on. But what happens when he clambers out of the water?

Best bit: the guy’s t-shirt, advertising “Peter and Vicki Plummer’s Union Hotel, Barcaldine, Queensland”

Next… a nice afternoon at the country club.

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