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.

Billy TK Snr - Churchills Bar Christchurch - 12 March 2016

   The Maori Jimi Hendrix was a label allocated to Billy Te Kahika after his stint in the legendary New Zealand Psych/Hard Rock band Human Instinct back in the late 60s and early 70s. The band put out three albums, with Billy in the line up, of lofi psych rock with some fantastically punishing guitar from the Man himself before he left the band to explore and develop his guitar playing under his own terms with his own band, Billy TK's Powerhouse. Since then he has been involved in several low key projects and recorded and played with both local and international musicians, including Carlos Santana in 1996 and is a dedicated peace activist.

   I was blown away by his work with The Human Instinct when I first discovered it in the early 1990s, but knew little about his activities since that time. When I saw that he was going to be playing here this month for a nominal cover charge of ten bucks at a small Christchurch venue, I just had to go and check it out.

   A friend was going to accompany me on this gig but something cropped up for him at the last moment and so I went solo again. I dropped the Mrs off at another event that she was attending and got to the venue just a few minutes after the scheduled 9pm start. Of course Billy hadn't hit the stage yet and was infact sitting having a quite drink with his bass player on the opposite side of the room from where I parked my butt after procuring myself a refreshing ginger beer. The place was dam near empty with only about 20 people in the bar and 8 of them were Billy and his band. the bar staff, the two ladies taking the money at the door and the bouncer.

I had checked out a couple of Billy's videos on YouTube earlier in the day to get an idea of what I might be seeing this night and there was a video with a full band and singer and another with just Billy and another musician sitting on chairs playing. The gig was advertised as Billy TK and Band, so I thought it might be a full band, but it was actually Billy and a Bass player, who also did some keyboards and sound effects and that also supplied the drumbeats. They were accompanied by a woman on a conga drum.

   They ambled onto the stage at around 9:30pm in what looked to be a bit of an amature night set up, especially with the misinscule audience there. They started their set with one of Billy's recent original compositions "Mama Funk" and the sound was pretty good although not real loud, which was good considering how empty the place was. Once Billy started into his guitar I knew this was gonna be a bloody good show, ok he isn't much of a singer and the band set up was a bit like some cheesy amature covers band at a local working mens club, but boy this man can still play some beautiful guitar. The set was pretty heavily laden with Jimi Hendrix covers with some Santana and Gary Moore thrown in for good measure but he did his own slant on those songs and made it real interesting and different even though is style pays homage to both of the first two guitarists mentioned. He played two sets of about 45 minutes with the second set having the added bonus of a 4.4M earthquake rock the place at 11pm, although nobody seemed to notice and the band never misses a beat. It was a gentle rocking quake and  the Mrs confirmed it via text just so I knew it wasn't my imagination. Billy oozed out his fabulous guitar sounds for another 30 minutes before calling it a night and just proved again what an ignorant musical culture we have in Christchurch that only a dozen paying punters bothered to show up and see this legend play.