Tami Neison - The Piano - Christchurch 19 October 2019

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.

Black Range - 11 October 2019

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No 168

Black Range - 11 October 2019

Hadn't been able to get back out tramping after my initial run of three trips in September due to other commitments and weather considerations, but my friend Bryce was leading this trip on the Black Range, near Bealey and I always enjoy his trips and company. He was running this trip to fill in some blank areas on this short range that he had not yet traversed.

  Being a CTC club trip, there were 17 keen trampers, all hoping the weather forecast of supposed light rain in the afternoon was going to hold off until we completed out traverse.

 Leaving the cars at the Broad Stream bridge, we headed up broad stream to McKay Stream, then up McKay stream looking for a track that climbed up onto the ridge on the true left.The start of the track was steep but easy enough to follow but higher up we kinda lost it of it petered out and we had to bush bash through young regrowth. The 400+ meter climb through the bush was quite tough and with such a big group, took quite a while and about two thirds of the way to the bushline, the back part of the sole of one of my boots decided to part ways with the rest of the boot.. Went the bush thinned out about 100 odd meters from the bushline, the group stopped to regroup and I presented my boot dilemma to the leader. I suggested I could head back down to the cars but Bryce looked at the options and we found one member of the group had some duct tape which we used to tape the b00t back together. 

  We continued on to the bush line and stopped for lunch on the open tussock, with the sun tentatively trying to poke it's head out to warm us. After lunch we donned jackets to protect us from the cool breeze and headed onwards and upwards along the ridge to point 1854, hitting patchy but soft snow on the way. The group again got quite spread out with one person in particular falling well behind even me, as I was struggling with my energy levels on this trip. Turns out the straggler was having an even worse time with energy levels than me and when we caught the rest of the group waiting on point 1854, a review of the time we had left and how people were feeling was discussed. It was decided the the person who was struggling at the back was not going to make it in the time we had lest all the way to Mt Misery and so some of the group decided to drop off the tops earlier while the rest continued on to Mt Misery before dropping down. Partly because of the condition of my boot but also because I was feeling a bit sluggish also, I decided to go with the group that was going to drop off earlier, although I did not realize that we still had to get to point 1911 via a second point 1854 before we were to drop off. I found this tough going on this day but slogged on, after waiting for the last member to catch up and was finally relieved to be heading down after point 1911.

  The trip down the ridge from Point 1911 was not bad and we found some soft bits to speed the descent although I did have to re tape the floppy boot at one point but the scree soon took care of that and I had to live with my floppy boot for the rest of the descent. The bush bash down the last bit into the unnamed stream below point 1911 was very open and quite steep and slippery and was tricky getting down and I got quite dirty from sliding on my butt etc. This second group had also splintered in the way down with the others taking a different route down and actually getting back to the vehicles well before us. The Mt Misery group hit the highway just up the road from us at a similar time.

  On paper the trip didn't look too taxing and although I suspect I climbed over 1500M we actually only covered a distance of about 12Km over about 9 and a half hours, but I found this trip quit tough going.

Mermaidens - The Darkroom - Christchurch - 11 October 2019

The Mermaidens just got back from touring Europe and this was the first night on their album release tour of the four main centers of their home country. The new album, "Look Me In The Eye" has been on high rotation at my place and I think it could be a strong contender for my NZ record of the year, just like their last one.

 I am still surprised how a band as good as The Mermaidens(perhaps one of the best indi bands in NZ and on the premier NZ record label, Flying Nun) is still only playing tiny venues like the Darkroom, which although it was pretty full, was not packed to capacity as far as I could see.

  Support band this night was Kool Aid(formally Brian Tamaki and the Kool Aid Kids) a local indie band with three guitars bass and drums. I had seen them before(under their old moniker) but I think I enjoyed their set a lot more this time. The sound was really good tonight, with five of them playing it was not too overcrowded sounding which I think I found last time I saw them. They have some great catchy songs and nice guitar hooks that kept my foot tapping throughout. Most enjoyable.

  The three piece Mermaidens hit the stage at around 10:30pm. Guitarist Gussie Larkin and bass player Lily Paris West both had bright red dresses, on kinda matching the colour of the new albums cover. I had first seen them in Dunedin a couple of years back before I had heard their music and at that gig, although enjoyable enough, was not one that stuck in my memory as great. Since then, I have got much more familiar with their music and very impressed with their recorded output. They have also done a lot more international touring since I last saw them. This time was much better, Gussie has a fabulous voice and her singing is getting stronger and although Lily sings a fair portion of their songs also and is a fine singer, I found myself concentrating on Gussie's vocal performance more and I was very impressed with the power of this tiny woman's voice. The sound was pretty loud but not too muddy this night although Lily's bass was a little distorted but she plays some great bass lines supporting Gussie's great guitar which she can shred bloody well at intense moments in their songs, especially on about the third song they played I think it was. Really enjoyed them much more than the first time. Great night of music.

Nervous Jerk - Darkroom - Christchurch 27th September 2019

Christchurch 3 piece punk band Nervous Jerk put out their first piece of vinyl on 7 inch showcasing three tracks including their contributing track to the Melted Ice Cream CD comp Sickest Smashes From Arson City, "Vitamins".

 I had seen them play a couple of times before including as part of the Melted Ice Cream multi band series of concerts when the aforementioned compilation came out. The two other bands supporting that night also piqued my interest of getting of my lazy butt and getting into the city to see some live music. 

 First up was another three piece band called Mental Fatal. I had caught A snippet of a video of them preforming at another local venue online and was impressed enough to want to see them play at some point. I was not disappointed with their American influenced hardcore punk, classical snotty punk singer and energetic trashy songs that impressed me a lot. I actually enjoyed this band the best of the three on this particular night.

  Next up was a rare appearance by another three piece, The Transistors. I had seen them play a few years back supporting the Buzzcocks and had been impressed enough to track down a copy of their only full album. The album was not as impressive as I had hoped but they were a pretty good live act. They said pretty much all the songs they played that night were from that album and the first few songs didn't really fire me up that much but in the middle section of their set the played three songs that I though were great and really had me tapping my foot and the mosh pit was heaving..

 Finally Nervous Jerk hit the stage to strut their stuff. It was good to see the Darkroom pretty full this night and again the mosh pit was heaving with bodies causing this old fart to retire towards the back og the room. The Jerk played a good set but I didn't think it was as good as the last time I had seen them playing their classic punk. I did get somewhat distracted during their set by going next door to Ride On Super Sounds to purchase some Records. Still, a great punk band and definitely worth checking out live.