Another Bill Direen and The Builders Gig, this being the third time I had seen Bill at the Darkroom. The Builders had many different lineups over the last 30+ years and this was the 1985 band that had recorded most of the Conch3 album, which contained perhaps their best known song, "Alligator".
Arrived at the venue about 8:20pm on a very cold and wet evening and while at the bar ready to order a drink, I overheard the barman talking to another gentleman regarding The Axemen and the poster art they use to use for gig advertising, I mentioned that I had been perusing the Axemen's blog the previous evening looking at some of the aforementioned posters and the gentleman that the barman was talking to was in fact the drummer from The Axemen and also was the drummer for tonight's Builders gig. So we had a nice chat about The Axemen before I settled in to wait for the gig to start. As I was pretty early, the place was still quite empty and Bill was wandering round waiting for more to arrive before he started his solo set. He stopped and said hello to me and we chatted about the recent vinyl reissues the builders had released.
Bill finally took the stage not too long after the scheduled start time and presented us with a lovely set of his songs, many seeming to be translations of old french poetry, or stories about old friends and one dedicated to Jane Walker, of Toy Love, who had passed away the previous day from cancer.. I did recognize one song of the recent Chrysanthemum Storm reissue.
There was only a short break as the other two musicians got ready to join Bill on stage. The guitar, bass and drums were kept at fairly low volume for some quieter songs at the start of the set, but the sound stayed quieter than most bands that I see and it was cool to actually hear so much of what they were playing and just showed that you don't have to turn everything up to 11 like so many bands do.
So they played quite a lot of the songs from the Conch3 album several that I did recognize this time and thoroughly enjoyed their set very much, they did rock out a bit and it was perhaps the best of the gigs I have seen Bill play. The saddest thing was Bill announced that he was retiring from playing Builders gigs and this was to be their last show in New Zealand and would wind it up in Australia soon. He would still be preforming the theatre music he does but no more Builders.
There was only a short break as the other two musicians got ready to join Bill on stage. The guitar, bass and drums were kept at fairly low volume for some quieter songs at the start of the set, but the sound stayed quieter than most bands that I see and it was cool to actually hear so much of what they were playing and just showed that you don't have to turn everything up to 11 like so many bands do.
So they played quite a lot of the songs from the Conch3 album several that I did recognize this time and thoroughly enjoyed their set very much, they did rock out a bit and it was perhaps the best of the gigs I have seen Bill play. The saddest thing was Bill announced that he was retiring from playing Builders gigs and this was to be their last show in New Zealand and would wind it up in Australia soon. He would still be preforming the theatre music he does but no more Builders.
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