Blog Roddus

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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

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.




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