Hard on the heels of an epic 2013 of sold-out shows, rave reviews, and thousands of winding miles, Bond Street Bridge have hit the road again to visit old friends, meet new ones, and raise the roof from Invercargill to Baylys Beach. Sat 22 February sees them team up with local alt-folk darlings Rosy Tin Teacaddy to bring close harmonies, storytelling and jingle-jangle balladeering to St Peter’s Hall in Paekakariki.
The last two shows Bond Street Bridge have performed in the Wellington region have both sold out – last year’s appearance with Rosy Tin Teacaddy in the NZ Fringe packed out the historic Moorings ballroom in Thorndon and was described by the Dominion Post as a ‘perfect evening of music,’ and their album release show at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea in October filled the galleries with tales of icy adventure and historical derring-do.
The past year has seen Bond Street perform over 100 shows on the road, playing at fancy places like arts festivals, museums, art galleries, opera houses and theatres all over the country. They have performed their unique show ‘The Explorers Club: Antarctica’ to packed houses and critical acclaim across the length and breadth of New Zealand, circling the country twice and winning the award for ‘Best Music’ at the 2013 New Zealand Fringe Festival awards. The show was a ‘stunning’ according to the Whanganui Chronicle, a ‘tour de force’ said the Nelson Mail, the new album (‘a work of rare genius,’ said stuff.co.nz) spent a month in the charts and won the praises of the toughest critics in the land, but with all of these high-culture venues and hushed, seated audiences - not to mention hotel-grade accommodation and the better sort of whiskey - Bond Street Bridge are worried about going soft.
So to kick off 2014, Bond Street Bridge take it back to the bar-rooms and Community Halls in a Summer Throwdown Tour, setting aside their high-concept Antarctica show and upper middle-brow cultural aspirations for a month or so to bring out a raft of new material and demonstrate that they can sling a guitar in a bar full of good-time yahoos just as well as they can hold a room full of history buffs in thrall with tales of icy disaster.
Bond Street have been writing new material and plundering folk-song archives to breathe new life into old singalongs and shanties, unearthing hair-raising stories and rousing choruses. Expect the Devil, expect jealous gods and queens of the underworld, maimed seadogs and lost loves, the darkness at the edge of town and the light of a spiteful moon, vocal harmonies, stomping feet and jangling guitars as Bond Street Bridge reveal the work they have been writing on the road over the course of their 2013 travels.
Along the way the band are meeting up with old friends around the country - The Broken Heartbreakers for selected South Island shows, Rosy Tin Teacaddy for their annual St Peters Hall shindig in Paekakariki, Hannah Curwood, back from London for the Summer appearing at the Golden Dawn, and of course the enigmatic Brendan Turner will be opening the shows along the way with his trademark dark delta blues. Later on in March, the band have been invited to open for Billy Bragg at the Opera House in Wellington and the Powerstation in Auckland, a state of affairs that has them reeling in happy disbelief.
Join Bond Street Bridge as they blaze a track through the summer of 2014, hearts on sleeves and boots on the floor at St Peters Hall with Rosy Tin Teacaddy.
