The Builders - Space Acadamy - Christchurch - 7 Febuary 2020

This was a gig that came a little out of the blue with a notice popping up on The Builders Facebook page earlier in the week and it seems very little else in advertising or promotion that I saw elsewhere. It was also a bit of a surprise as last time I saw Bill Direen and this particular version of His Builders, he announced at the end of the gig that it would be the last time we would be seeing The Builders play in New Zealand as he was retiring the band after a few gigs in Australia.

  It looks like he enjoys it too much to really hang up the towel and I am most pleased to have got to see them play again. It was October 2018 the last time I saw this group over the road at The Darkroom.

  Bill has convened many different versions of The Builders under several different variants of the name over the last 40 Years, but this is the same band he played with in the last gig mentioned above, Greg Bainbridge on bass, Stuart Page(of Axemen Fame) on drums and Bill on guitar, keyboard and vocals, the lineup that recorded The Conch 3 album in 1985.

  I arrived early at Space Academy, just on door opening time and was about the third person through the door. The Band was sitting around in the front porch waiting for Bill to show and they actually started playing just prior to 9PM. Space Academy is a small venue but the audience this night was rather small with perhaps about a dozen people in attendance for the first 30 odd minutes of the set. A few more straggles in as the evening progressed  but the venue was not even quarter full by the time the band had a break around 10PM.

  The lack of people didn't phase Bill at all, the band played on with Bill telling stories and introducing the songs that were drawn from all the periods of his long career, with songs going back to the late 70s when he was living in Blenheim, right up to "The Utopians are Just Out Boozing" from just a couple of years back. The band played subtly and mostly restrained and at a pleasant volume as Bill does, so it was easy to hear all that was played. Bill's music is quite a unique blend of indie/alternative rock always propelled along with great bass lines and Bill's un processed guitar sound and poetic lyrics. Hugely respected and written about in the annals of NZ music but still little known to the wider NZ public, still I love intimate gigs like this one. It was a great night.

The Builders - The Darkroom - Christchurch - 12th October 2018

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.

Bill Direen - Darkroom - Christchurch - 20 August 2017

No sooner had we got back from our trip to Dunedin, unpacked the car, had some dinner and a shower and I'm back out the door and off into the city to catch NZ underground music legend Bill Direen at the Darkroom. There had been a documentary on Bill playing at the NZ film festival(I haven't yet seen it) and he had just had an LP reissue of a 2008 cassette release arrive in the country so I guess this gig was in support of those things. He did have copies of the record for sale at the gig.
 This time he was mostly flying solo playing songs from theatre productions and "operas" that he had written over the years. The night started with a film showing Bill preforming a bunch of songs live at various venues and at various time over the years that was a pretty cool montage. Then after a break he played the Theater Songs for about an hour or so, it was an interesting if idiosyncratic set and I enjoyed seeing this legend at play. Later he had his bass played join him for a few numbers including his most well known song from the mid 80's, The Alligator, and then finally and best of all, he was joined on stage by Steve Cogal from The Terminals for the impassive last song.