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Saturday, October 1, 2016

Connie Benson - The Darkroom - Christchurch 30 September 2016



Who the hell is Connie Benson. I had never heard of her, was in complete ignorance of her and her music. Still am to a certain extent. First she was just another unknown name playing a gig at The Darkroom in Christchurch. Lots of small time Local bands play there and I seldom know who they are. Then I saw a video of her playing outside Death Ray Records in Wellington that The Darkroom posted on their facebook page and I was so impressed that I thought I had better go and see her play.


I showed the Mrs. the above video and asked if she wanted to come along also. She was keen.
We arrived at The Darkroom just on Nine, Connie was suppose to hit the stage around ten and there was supposed to be a guest playing first I thought. There was a pair of turntables on stage when we arrived but the doors don't usually open till 8 or 8:30pm and there were bugger all people there when we arrived, so if something happened before we arrived then no one saw it.
 We grabbed some drinks and found the most comfortable seating and chatted while waiting for the lass to come onstage.
 This girl is very young, she looks barely 20 or even younger, although playing in a licensed venue, she was probably over 18. She plays a great style of Rockabilly, and is a very very cool guitarist. I just loved her sound and playing. With just drums and guitar, the sound was pretty clear and so was easy to hear the great stuff she was playing. I am not all that familiar with this archaic style of music so I have no idea if any of the songs she played were originals, although I did recognise one song she covered but couldn't tell you the name. I thought, from the videos I watched before the gig, that it would be all instrumental songs but the lass does sing, although I wasn't all that taken with her style or her voice. I don't know if she was trying to sing in a weird American country accent of if that was just how her young voice really sounds. The vocals weren't mixed very well so got a bit overpowered buy her guitar playing.
They only played for just a tad over 40 minutes which I thought was a bit short seeing as they were the only band on for the night and the punters were keen hear more but maybe they didn't have any more songs to play. Don't know! They were quick to start dismantling their gear so we headed home. Definitely worth going to see, she plays so well, really gets into it. Great gig.






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