The voice was back in Christchurch for another gig on this Saturday night, this time at the quite new venue, The Piano. We had been to The Piano before to see The New Zealand Trio playing some local Classical Music and like the venue a lot. It is set up a bit like a lecture hall with the seating going up with each row so all get a good view of the low but large stage at the front. We got in early enough to get center seats in the fourth row.
The stage was set with just some guitars and small amps as this was just Tami and her brother Jay playing this night, but first up we got to see a short set from The much talented local Lady, Holly Arrowsmith. Holly had put out a record last year that I had managed to pick up on vinyl and it turned out to be one of my favourite NZ records of the year, so I was looking forward to seeing her preform. She was alone with her acoustic guitar. She sung about half a dozen songs, a couple I recognized from her record, one was a Dylan cover and for the life of me I can't remember what song it was, and the rest I don't think I knew. She has a lovely voice and plays very good guitar and I think has strong material with a good nod to Joni Mitchell, but overall I was just a little underwhelmed buy her set.
Tami and her Brother Jay, were touring together for the first time since she first came to NZ from her native Canada. The show was about her life as a performer(This Is Tami Neilson) and so the show consisted of quite long pieces of dialog between songs as Tami told us her history growing up in Canada and going on the road with her family touring, playing music. Early on, as she was telling up a little about her family and her childhood, they played some songs that they would have been playing on those tours back in the 80s. Then they played more of her own Material as the story developed to her coming to NZ to live and play. As I said there was a lot of talk between songs but great to hear Tami singing again. They played a couple of new tracks from her upcoming record, due out in February and the last song they did was one of the new ones and it was a real belter with Tami showing us just how amazing a singer she is.
Overall though it was probably the show I enjoyed the least out of the four times I have now seen her play, but I will always try to get to her concerts because she is such a great performer.
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