UTR Presents
Dust off those hoverboards Ladies & Gentlemen – Mystery Girl, 95bFM and UnderTheRadar are thrilled to be heading back in time to bring you Okkervil River for 2 headline shows in February 2014
Saturday 15th February 2014
Bodega, Wellington
Sunday 16th February 2014
Kings Arms, Auckland
Both shows R18
Tickets onsale now from www.undertheradar.co.nz / Real Groovy Records / Slowboat & RPM
The Texan-bred indie folk-rockers Okkervil River recently -released, retro-tastic album The Silver Gymnasium, which finds them travelling back to those glory days (for some) of the 1980s!
For the seventh Okkervil River long-player, enigmatic and super-literate frontman Will Sheff – who writes all of the band’s material as well as lending his inimitable voice to bring it to life – concocted a series of vignettes based on his hometown of Meriden, New Hampshire and his memories of the rural outpost circa 1986. The album’s title is taken from the gym at the boarding school which Sheff attended and the songs are softly conceptual in nature, each based on a recollection from a more innocent age in every sense of the term, long before today’s heightened state of technological reliance came into being. The Silver Gymnasium was not only salivated over by critics but also reached No 7 in the US Billboard 200, Okkervil River’s highest place to date by a considerable margin.
While there are mild flourishes of ‘80s pomp and production amidst The Silver Gymnasium’s tracks, for the most part these songs continue the natural and fascinating evolution of the Okkervil River sound which has been transpiring over the last 15 years. Local fans will attest from previous visits that Okkervil River are an extremely well-drilled and evocative live proposition, so it will be exciting to watch them bring these time-travelling new tunes to life when they return to NZ next February for two headline gigs!
