Rockquest, the biggest competition of the Rock calendar, and I’m not talking about Earth Sciences. I’m talking about the bestest band in the world, nay, the Southern Hemisphere, nay, the Pacific, nay, New Zealand, nay, the peninsula, nay, dare I say it, the greatest band in Ruby Murphy’s garage. The mighty Sidetracked (Indi Botting, Tuva Botting, Jimmy Egginton, Ruby Murphy and Madi Mclellan) played the Smokefree Rockquest regional finals at Auckland Girls Grammar School, and backstage, we were feeling ready as ever. 

I recall Madi (the keyboardist) saying she felt stressed that she wasn’t stressed. But we played our little hearts out, and the crowd was going off their nut, by the end of the night, we hadn’t won anything, but I couldn’t care less, I loved every second, and it was sigmatious seeing so many people I love show up and go ballistic in the crowd for us. 

As long as there’s a mosh pit and an unsafe level of screaming guitar noise permanently damaging my hearing, rock lives on, so long live rock and roll, and party on Sidetracked.