Master Blaster - Darkroom - Christchurch 23 September 2017

As usual, I heard a great track from the new 7" EP on the "Counting The Beat" Podcast and liked what I heard, checked them out via Bandcamp and decided I needed to buy both their available records. Before I got the chance to do that, I found out they were actually playing a gig near me in support of the aforementioned 7" record, pictured above, and it was decided to go and check them out and pick up the records on the night(saving postage costs).

  It was election night as I arrived at the Darkroom just past the 9PM door opening time and so I settled down with a drink and my phone to check up on the vote counting while waiting for the first of the three punk bands to hit the stage.

 First band, Tyrannosaurus Wreck, a three piece, thrashing out their fast punky  songs, creating an enjoyable noise that begs the question where does it stop being punk and become Metal. It can be a fine line. I did enjoy their set.

  Nervous Jerk were next and this three piece was definitely firmly in the punk genre although the vocals were in that pop punk style, the music was a bit heavier. The Guitar in this band didn't really stand out much, so it becomes a bit of a wall of sound making it difficult to actually hear the tunes clearly. I enjoyed them the least of the night.

  Finally Master Blaster hit the stage, a four piece, with the vocalist being the non instrument playing member. Their set was full on punk energy, with the singer all over the place, knocking over mike stands and kicking over one of the monitor speakers before descending into the small audience, where he spent much of the rest of the gig screaming into his mic. They were bloody good and I enjoyed their set plenty but again the guitar was to low down in the mix and so didn't stand out above the thundering drums and bass so it was difficult to actually identify the songs I already knew because the whole was just a super fast wall of noise. It was a bit of a shame really because the guitarist has some great riffs as confirmed on the records. Here are a couple of vids of their recorded songs.

The Nudge - The Wunderbar - Lyttelton - 16 September 2017

I picked up The Nudge's second LP earlier this year and was immediately impressed with their wonderful music and so was very keen to catch them on this tour in support of the same record.

I had been playing Dark Arts in the lead up to the gig and also checked out their first album on Bandcamp, which is also an excellent album. They had supported Midnight Oil earlier in the week but I did not attend that show.

  I arrived at The Wunderbar around 9pm with the support supposed to start at 9:45pm. The place was filling up fast and was almost a sell out in this small venue. They opened the doors to the Backroom eventually and fortunately, as my back was hurting, I got in the room early enough to grab one of the stools and table along the walls of the room. The stool was very high, so I was actually able to sit on it and still see the bands playing on the stage.

  The support was a dude named Fraser Ross with band(The 04's). Never heard of him but his set was OK, enjoyable enough, a kinda folk and country tinged indie pop blend. One song they did had some impressive guitar lines and it was his standout number. Good to see the two women playing Drums and Bass, Kiwi chicks are very prevalent in the local music scene.Fraser wasn't a great singer but passable to my ears.

  The Nudge are a three piece with guitar/vocals supported by a drummer and keyboards. They kicked off the set with three tracks from their earlier record( I assume, not being familiar enough with that album yet) The tracks had a real blues feel with the guitarist really letting loose with some great lines, the keyboardist providing the bass lines, I was a little surprised by the bluseynest of it as the new album is much different.

  The next section of the show was them playing the new album in it's entirety. There are only three numbers on Dark Arts but two of them are rather long drawn out pieces. The first track is the shortest but with a catchy guitar riff and vocals, closest thing to a pop song on the record. The guitarist had swapped guitars and I noticed that the guitar was a bit quieter than it had been on the earlier songs but it sang out when required.This is noticeable on the record too so it is part of the design of the tracks. The highlight of the first of the long pieces was the sustained guitar frenzy towards the end of the piece and the other extended track had a fucking awesome drum solo, the drummer impressed no end.

  They continued playing older stuff after The Dark Arts set and just rocked out awesomely. What a fantastic live band and both records are really great. Another premium NZ act with the guitarist channeling the ghost of Hendrix at times.