Lawrence Arabia Announces September Shows In Wellington And Dunedin

Auckland-based musician Lawrence Arabia has announced solo shows for Wellington and Dunedin next month. The dates will follow his appearance at The Others Way Festival in Auckland on 1st September and will see the self-described "pre-eminent chronicler of 21st Century bourgeois dilemmas" perform two nights in Wellington and one night in Dunedin. Here are the full details...

An Evening Alone with Lawrence Arabia

Friday 15th September, Tararua Tramping Club, Wellington 
Saturday 16th September, Tararua Tramping Club, Wellington
Friday 29th September, Plato, Dunedin

Tickets available HERE at UTR, and in-store at Slow Boat/RPM in Wellington and Relics Music in Dunedin

Here's Lawrence Arabia performing 'A Lake' from his latest album Absolute Truth by a lake for RNZ last year...

PRESS RELEASE:

This September, Honorary Bedouin Records Presents:
AN EVENING ALONE WITH LAWRENCE ARABIA

NOTHING makes me procrastinate more than having to write a press release about myself. So why I do I now find myself doing this very thing?!

Well, it's BECAUSE I'm playing some solo shows this September in Wellington and Dunedin and I need to “publicise” them so there will be an “audience” in attendance. Without an “audience” – i.e. you? – there will be no performance, because a performance without an audience is merely a rehearsal.

And rehearsals, as fun as they are, do not pay money. And MONEY is what I need, specifically your money, in the form of ticket sales. It's ugly and gauche to talk about money like this, I suppose, but I want to be upfront with you. These shows are not merely a pure artistic statement – they are a transaction.

BUT, of all the transactions you have recently carried out (and what is life if not a series of transactions, from the sexual encounter that resulted in your conception to the contract with the crematorium that incinerates your mortal remains) this should, at least in theory, be one of the most satisfying.

Why so satisfying? Well, my sceptical friend, because SCIENCE. Psychologists from San Francisco State University have proven that experiences provide more lasting happiness than material possessions. In addition, the shared experience of music provides a primal thrill evoking the earliest days of human communication and allows a communal experience of joy so rare in this decadent age of digital insularity.

So come along – Wellingtonians, Dunedinites – and join me, Lawrence Arabia, New Zealand's pre-eminent chronicler of 21st Century bourgeois dilemmas, for a “communal experience of joy so rare in this decadent age of digital insularity.”