The Gig Guide: November 2016

Planning on attending a concert, show, or gig in Christchurch? Then why not take a look at what we’ve got of that artist’s back catalogue?

Comedy

• Heath Franklin‘s CHOPPER 3 November
• Peta Mathias 26 November

Kids

• The Gruffalo 10-12 November

Music

• Anna Coddington 4 November
• Greg Johnson 4 November
• Graham Wardrop 4 November
• Mara TK, Troy Kingi & Mark Vanilau 4 November
• Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Last Night of the Proms 4-5 November
• Shapeshifter 10 November
• Bernie Griffen & Kirsten Warner 12 November
• NZTrio with special guest Simon O’Neill 13 November

• Devilish Mary and The Holy Rollers 18 November
• Live in the Park – Six60, The Black Seeds, and Laughton Kora 19 November
• Mark Laurent & Brenda Liddiard 20 November
• Julio Iglesias 22 November
• The Monkees 50th Anniversary Tour 29 November
• Nelly 30 November

What gigs are you looking forward to in the near future? Anything we’ve missed? Do let us know in the comments.

The Gig Guide: October 2016

Planning on attending a concert, show, or gig in Christchurch? Then why not take a look at what we’ve got of that artist’s back catalogue?

• The Church Tour featuring Sharon O’Neill, Hammond Gamble, Shona Laing, Debbie Harwood 30 September & 1 October
• The Narcs (with Rikki Morris, and Peter (Rooda) Warren of the Pop Mechanix) 1 October
• Royal New Zealand Navy Band 5 October
• The Dire Straits Experience 6 October
• Beatlemania on Tour 2016 6 October
• Villainy 7 October
• Woolston Brass 8 October
• Bill Direen & Builders 8 October
• Hayes Carll with Adam McGrath 9 October
• Devilish Mary and the Holy Rollers 12 October
• Sweeney Todd, NZ Opera 12-15 October
• Craig Smith (Not just for kids show) 14 October
• Don McGlashan & Shayne Carter 20 October
• Fiona Pears 22 October
• Bad Manners 23 October
• André Rieu 29 October

Kids

• Hi 5 5 October
• Waiata for Tamariki, Parklands Library 5 October

Comedy

• Bill Bailey 20 October

What gigs are you looking forward to in the near future? Anything we’ve missed? Do let us know in the comments.

The Gig Guide: September 2016

Planning on attending a concert, show, or gig in Christchurch? Then why not take a look at what we’ve got of that artist’s back catalogue?

Music

• Darude 8 September
• Graham Wardrop 9 September
• CSO, Lamb & Hayward Masterworks: Appalachian to Zappa 10 September
• Lindon Puffin 11 September
• NZSO – Swing into Spring 14 September
• Christchurch City Chorus 17 September
• Cripple Mr Onion 17 September
• Clap clap riot 17 September
• Leighs Construction CSO Presents: The Ten Greatest Moments in the History of Orchestral Music 22 September
• Evita 21 & 25 September
• Hollie Smith 24 September
• Brendan Gregg 25 September
• Marley Sola 28 September
• Ellie Goulding 29 September

Debbie Harwood, Hammond Gamble, Sharon O’Neill and Shona Laing (Image supplied)

• The Church Tour featuring Sharon O’Neill, Hammond Gamble, Shona Laing, Debbie Harwood 30 September & 1 October

Kids

• Hinepau 2 September

Comedy

• The Laughing Samoans 16 September

What gigs are you looking forward to in the near future? Anything we’ve missed? Do let us know in the comments.

The Gig Guide: August 2016

Planning on attending a concert, show, or gig in Christchurch? Then why not take a look at what we’ve got of that artist’s back catalogue?

Music

• Lamb & Hayward Masterworks: Piers Lane Plays Rachmaninov 13 August
• Lindon Puffin 14 August
• The Greatest Love of All – Whitney Houston Tribute Show 16 August
• Ultimate Bowie 17 August
• Shayne P Carter & Band 25 August

Comedy

• Alan Carr 18 August

Dance

• Giselle, Royal New Zealand Ballet 23 & 24 August

In addition August features both the NZIFF and WORD Christchurch festivals

What gigs are you looking forward to in the near future? Anything we’ve missed? Do let us know in the comments.

Popular Culture – picks from our January newsletter

Some picks from our latest Popular culture newsletter:

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Lock Up Your Daughters

The highly processed and idolised boy band One Direction is landing in our fair city next week, so here is a warning for one and all. I live over the fence from the venue, so I’ll be reminding my husband to turn down his hearing aids lest the squealing does even more damage to his old rocker ears. We’ll have a first aid station set up at our gate to assist the fainters as well.

Put together to appear on UK X Factor 2010, and placed third, they were snaffled by manufactured music mogul Simon Cowell and the rest, they say, is history. They have amassed a personal combined wealth of $25 million and cause a mass fluttering of tween and teen hearts around the globe.

Boy bands are not a new phenomenon. Think back to Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons, The Osmonds, The Beatles (OK, maybe not quite in the same vein, but they did get the screamers and fainters), The Monkees and The Jackson Five,  through to The Bay City Rollers, New Kids on the Block, Boyz ii Men, Westlife, ‘NSync, Jonas Brothers and who could forget The Hansons.

It’s all about repressed sexuality, unattainable perfection and being oh so ‘on trend’ it’s oozing out of their pores. I’ve heard young girls say their favourite 1D member is the best because “he really gets me and understands me!”

Baby you light up my world like nobody else. The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed. And when you smile at the ground it ain’t hard to tell. You don’t know-oh-oh, you don’t know you’re beautiful. If only you saw what I can see, you’d understand why I want you so desperately. Right now I’m looking at you and I can’t believe, you don’t know-oh-oh, you don’t know you’re beautiful. That’s What Makes You Beautiful – One Direction Lyrics

The ability for young girls to attach themselves to complete strangers is what drives the sales, I must confess here to a major crush on Paul Stanley from Kiss in the seventies: those deep brown eyes and gorgeous curly hair… I bet he ‘got me’, sigh!

So, lock up your daughters, or at least check what they are wearing before they leave for the concert, so you can say “You’re not leaving the house in that.”

Did you have a boy (or girl band for that matter), that you loved, or still do? Confess, you won’t be judged.

A church + great NZ musicians = one amazing night

Four very talented New Zealand musicians performing acoustic sets in St Michael’s Church – what more could you ask for?  I’m still buzzing from the Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour that was held in the St Michael’s Church last night.  It’s not often that you get to see four great artists in the same performance, but this tour was a chance to see Lydia Cole, Nathan King, Greg Johnson and Boh Runga perform an acoustic set and, in the case of Greg and Boh, to perform together.  Lydia Cole, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter that I hope to hear more of, started the evening with her songs of longing.  Next Nathan King upped the tempo with some great acoustic versions of songs from his latest solo album The Crowd.  After a short break Greg Johnson and Boh Runga teamed up to give us some of their best songs.    The St Michael’s Church is a fantastic venue for these acoustic performances because the acoustics are amazing and you can hear every word that they sing.  Liam Finn played here a couple of years ago and that had to be the best concert I’ve ever been to.  I’m sure there will be more of these types of performance in this venue and I would totally recommend you go to the next one.

If you like these musicians or have yet to discover them we have plenty of their music in the library:

– Lydia Cole has yet to release an album but you can get a feel for her music on the Birds of Paradise CD.  This CD includes many female NZ artists and song great songs.

– Nathan King’s first solo album The Crowd and albums from his former band, Zed.

– Boh Runga’s first solo album Right Here and albums from her former band, Stellar

– Greg Johnson’s latest Greatest Hits has just been released and we also have his previous albums.

Essential reading for rockstar wannabes

Okay, so I’ve always wanted to be a rockstar.  I know, I know, not a very original aspiration to have and librarian-rockstars are few and far between but that’s why they’re called “dreams”.  So naturally my eye was taken by the following recent acquisitions to the library collection.  For what hath a librarian-rockstar if not the urge (and skill) to research her dream profession?

Battle of the band names : the best and worst band names ever and all the brilliant, colorful, stupid ones in between – This is required reading because there’s no way I’m going to be able to coast to rockstar supremacy on the back of my own mediocre talent. I will need a band and getting the name right is trés important.  To be fair this is a bit of a one joke book and the sort of thing that you can just dip in and out of but having said that there are plenty of noteworthy additions.  My personal favourite?  John Cougar Concentration Camp.  Oh, and Kiwi bands like The Formyula are included (for bad spelling probably, tsk).

Crap lyrics : a celebration of all the very worst pop lyrics of all time– ever! – Once I have my imaginary band we will necessarily have to write some songs (though we won’t be so much “pop” as synth-dub-barbecue reggae-neopunk). It might be nice to know what to avoid in terms of lyricism. When you think about it most pop lyrics seem to be a bit crap, don’t they? I mean even the hallowed Beatles were fairly banal in their day.

Love love me do, you know I love you, I’ll always be true. So ple-ee-ee-ease, love me do.

Now that I think about it, even the syntax is a bit skewiff in that one.  So even the rock greats can pen some howlers from time to time and this book is just the one to point at the naked rock ‘n’ roll emperor and tell him to get his kit on.

The complete idiot’s guide to starting a band – ‘Nuff said?

So, any nominations for worst band name or crappest ever lyrics?