Mate's Day Monday - Shane Boden

Hendo asked me to do Mates Day Monday today. It’s a huge honor considering today is his 27th birthday.

Hendo and I have known each other all our lives so I thought I would go through and pay tribute with songs that remind me of him.

There are quite a few as you can imagine so this is just a small selection with a bit of back story.

In chronological order(sort of):

Matchbox 20 - 3am

I think it was my 8th birthday and he gave me a cassette of Matchbox 20 album "yourself or someone like you". My very first album. Not a bad start.

Fatboy Slim - Fucking In Heaven

It was Hendo's 11th birthday and he got a copy of Fatboy Slim - "You've come along way baby" from his parents. We had an old school sleep over at his place. We must of played this song 10 times in a row just cause it had the word “fuck” in it. Haha.

Pennywise - Bro Hymm

Roll on to the teenage years when we were 16. A lot of nights of our youth were spent drunk belting out the lyrics to this song.

Supergrass - Sun Hits The Sky

Fast Forward to the end of Highs School and me and Hendo decided to make a summer 2004 music mix. This song was on it and got a hammering driving out to the beach and back.

U2 -  I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Many U2 songs remind me of Hendo for some reason or another. This juts being one, but it reminds me of the time we went to sounds music store and bought U2 Cd’s. I got Greatest Hits 1980-1990 and he got 1990-2000. I definitely got the better one.We also got free How to dismantle an atomic bomb t-shirts.

Alien Ant Farm – Glow

It was the Big Kumara in wellington on a Wednesday night. The Band had just left for a wee break. Me, Hendo and another mate Paul Watts decided to get up on stage and sing into the microphone as this song came over the speaker. As it turns out the microphone was still on and our horrible voices echoed through the pub as we belted out the lyrics. Bouncers came from all directions in a hurry but we managed not to get kicked out. That’s Kumara for ya. RIP Big Kumara.

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Those of you who were at Victoria Uni with us in first year may remember the bad taste party at the Big Kumara. The music started out pretty average so Hendo convinced the DJ to play a CD of his. We ran back to the hostel made and burned a CD in record time. The DJ played it and this song went off. We were dancing on the stage yelling the lyrics.

Green Day – Brain Stew

A friend of ours Whitey was trying to teach Hendo to play guitar and in particular the opening chords to this song. While I was trying to play Playstation, I must have heard the intro 50 times that afternoon and now when ever I hear it I think of Hendo’s clumsy finger trying to play guitar.

Neil Diamond - Sweet Caroline
It was my Uni graduation on a Tuesday night in December. After pub crawling from Hotel Bristol with Myself, Hendo and Scott Nicol going to every bar along the way and asking for their worst shot we arrived at El Horno. The bar was dead but a mate of ours worked there so he put on this song. The three off us danced on the bar to it, grabbing swigs from the tequila bottles hanging from the ceiling.

AC/DC – Anything

Being friends with this guy for such a long time his love for AC/DC kind of rubs off on you. I now know plenty of useless facts about them as well as almost there entire back catalogue just from hanging out with him. He may not listen to them so much these days but im sure there still well placed on his top bands of all time list which he’ll be happy to tell you even if you don’t ask. So for this reason anything by AC/DC reminds me of my best mate.

Thank you to NMAB for letting me share this with you and if you have any of your own please share it too.

Happy Birthday Mate.