A fantastic 3-act night on offer. If there's one autumn night you should venture out, this is it!
Great North:
Great North have cemented themselves as one of New Zealand's most accomplished independent acts during six years of recording and performing songs about old people, love and death. The band, centred around husband-and-wife duo Hayden and Rachel Donnell, has released three critically-acclaimed albums and won two Tui awards since forming in the basement of Hayden's flat in 2009. Their album Halves won Best Folk Album at the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards and featured in the New Zealand Herald best albums of 2012 list. Its lead single, Lead Me To The Light, was long-listed for a Silver Scroll. Up In Smoke, the band's most recent release, also won an NZ Music Award for Best Folk Album. :
Hayden Donnell (Songwriting, Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano), Dale Campbell (Piano, Vocals, Acoustic Guitar), Rachel Donnell (Bass, Vocals), Ryan Attwood (Drums), Strahan Cole (Electric Guitars)
Over the last six years, Tui award-winning band Great North have cemented themselves as one of New Zealand's most accomplished independent acts.
When the band won Folk Album of the Year at the 2013 New Zealand Music Awards, after being long-listed for a Silver Scroll the previous year, it seemed front-man and songwriter Hayden Donnell had stumbled on the formula to make folk-country resonate with a local audience.
But for their follow-up release, Great North reinvent the formula again. A lush new sound drives this powerful collection of songs. At times it pays homage to classic country, with lonely pedal steel guitars sliding over swaggering rhythms. But just as often it booms and echoes with a choir and swirling guitars.
The Bads:
Brett Adams and Dianne Swann are The Bads - one of New Zealand’s most musically talented couples. Holed up in their rural West Auckland home, they have written some of the country’s most enduring tunes, including So Alive, Helensville and Drop In The Ocean. Both are accomplished songwriters. Brett is also one of New Zealand’s premiere guitarists, adding his licks to the music of Tim Finn and Gin Wigmore, and Dianne Swann has one of the most beautiful voices around contributing to any number of NZ artists recordings and live shows. Together they are a force of nature.
Brendan & Alison Turner:
There might be something wrong with Brendan & Alison Turner.
As former members of Bond Street Bridge and The Bitter Years, they developed a strange love of driving long distances across the country, playing a mix of Americana/Folk/Country/Blues, with sweet bluegrass harmonies and songs where everybody gets shot. All of this to small crowds of people for very little money.
This seems to keep them happy and mostly out of trouble.
