Last night we went to see Susan O’Neill play her Now in a Minute tour show.

It was really good! She’s haunting, and melancholy, and oh that Irish accent. Just say the word “tune” over and over.

It was even better because we went there completely by accident. A few weeks ago, driving along, we heard a piece on Radio NZ that featured this song. Go listen to it and then come back.

To quote a movie about Bob Dylan that we saw recently and thought was spectacular, that song just about knocked me flat! But we were driving and we had popped into the middle of the segment. Later, I googled with the keywords that came easily to mind. I got the O’Neill part right, and the algorithm told me she was coming to Auckland soon. Wow! But not so unexpected really… that’s one of the main reasons an artist gets featured on local radio, they’re playing here in the near future.

In my blissful ignorance I bought tickets not to Lisa O’Neill… who wrote that song but was not coming to Auckland this month… but to Susan… who didn’t but was.

Luckily, it all worked fine. We’ve discovered two new artists for the price of one, actually three if you count Jess Bailey who opened. And we had a great night out (just across the street from where we stayed our first two weeks in Auckland) and we got a funny story to boot.