Two of the Godfathers of New Zealand Indie rock/pop have teamed up for some live gigs around New Zealand in October 2016 and because I admire McGlashan so much I really needed to attend this, as I missed him last time he played here.
Don has been in several legendary New Zealand bands over the last 35+ years, including BlamBlamBlam, The Front lawn and The Muttonbirds, as well as putting out solo stuff as of late. I think his song writing is second to none in NZ and he is a most versatile musician and a great singer.
Shayne, likewise is very well known in post-punk indie circles, also fronting several near legendary NZ bands such as, Bored Games, Double Happys, Straightjacket Fits and Dimmer, he also releases solo music of late.
The Aurora center is a great venue at Burnside High School with a capacity of about 700 punters, the place was almost 3/4 full and surprisingly we were feeling reasonably young, looking at all the gray hairs milling about in the foyer before the gig.
The lads hit the stage about 8pm, just the two of them and went straight into the first song, with Don on amplified acoustic guitar and Shayne on electric guitar. I think, from memory the first track was a McGlashen song and as Don explained they would alternately be playing Don's songs and Shayne's songs. He also explained later in the show that they picked the songs from each others catalogue, i.e.Don picked all the Shayne songs and Shayne picked all the Don songs. Of course I knew a fair number of Don's songs that they played even though it was far from a "greatest hits" show, where as I was not so familiar with Shayne's songs and indeed it appears Don picked several of Shayne's more experimental songs which made for some really interesting pieces. Don played drums on a couple of songs and also some sort of Trombone thing where he played a bit and then put what he played into a repeating loop on a couple of numbers. The whole thing was very informal and laid back with plenty of banter from Shayne and some really great music, they played for a little over 2 hours and I was just so impressed, thinking what a couple of great old hands entertaining with so much fantastic music. Overall an awesome gig. If they are playing near you go and see them.
I didn't do any videos at this gig but below is one of the songs that they played recorded live in the studio for a CD they are releasing of the music they played us this night.
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