The Buzzcocks - The Foundry - Christchurch - 18 March 2016

One of the first of the original punk bands I got into in the very early 80's after gaining a copy of their "Another Music in a Different kitchen" album from my cousin who preferred the Jam to the Buzzcocks. Of course by this time the band had already split, so I never got to see them live in their original incarnation. I had missed them last time they played here so I thought I had better make the effort to catch these legends this time round. Steve Diggle and Pete Shelley are the two ageing originals in the band supported by Chris Remington - Bass (2008–Present) and Danny Farrant - Drums (2006–Present).
The Foundry bar is a fairly new facility built, I believe, since the Earthquakes of 2010/2011, as the new Canterbury University Student bar. And a very nice venue it is too with an apparent capacity of about 1200 people. There were door sales available so I guess it wasn't a sell out but the place was fairly full but not sardine like.
 The doors opened at 8pm with an hour for people to lubricate themselves before the support band hit the stage around 9pm. This lot were a 3 piece garage/punk pop band who reminded me a little of D4, another garage rock band from Auckland NZ. The Transistors put on a great hi-nrg 30 minute set of masterful melodic tunes and had many in the audience bopping along. I was most impressed, infact they are one of the better support bands I have seen. I was also impressed with the sound quality of their set and the volume level was pretty good.
 The inevitable wait we then endured as the roadies prepared the stage for The Buzzcocks set and more lubricating took place after which the band hit the stage just after 10pm. The first very obvious thing was the considerable increase in volume of the music as the band did a quick tune up before launching into the awesome "Fast Cars".As can bee seen from the video below my phone had real trouble recording the sound with the volume levels as they were and the actual sound wasn't all that far from what you hear on the first clip. So after 40 years punk music still can't figure out how to turn down the volume enough so that we can actually hear something more than a wall of sound. I didn't catch a word they said all night and it is only because I know many of the songs so well that I was able to actually catch some of the melody and lyrics. My ears are still ringing 24 hours later.
 All that being said(again) They played with fantastic energy for a couple of sexagenarians and it was a really good show, playing so many of the fantastic songs I love so much from their first period and a few newer ones I didn't know at all probably from their later albums, had the mosh pit jumping and my body bopping along and singing along. They played just under an hour but did come back for 3 more songs as an encore. The second video I took of the band was from further back from just in front of the mixing desk and captured the sound a lot better than the first vid, although even back there the sound was pretty distorted in real time.