Dirty Three Return In March

The summer gig season is getting truly manic now with the exciting addition of the Dirty Three who are returning to play a one off Auckland show in March. Fronted by one of the coolest men in music, the enigmatic violin wielding Warren Ellis, the instrumental trio were last here to play our first ever Laneway Festival and were a definite highlight. We won't be missing this one...

Dirty Three
Wednesday 14th March, The Powerstation - Auckland

Ticketing details below.

We have two really great interviews with Warren Ellis from the past couple of years, one on Dirty Three from 2010 and another on Grinderman from the start of the year before they played BDO.

Here's a video of the Dirty Three live at Laneway Auckland in 2010.

Press Release:

The Dirty Three return to Auckland
Wednesday 14th March – The Powerstation
Tickets from Ticketmaster

Last seen blowing minds in the late afternoon sun at Laneways 2010, instrumental trio the Dirty Three make a welcome return to our shores.

Formed some 20 years ago in Melbourne by violinist/frontman Warren Ellis, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White, the Dirty Three create a sound both skeletal and dramatic. However, this is no mere background music and the Dirty Three are unlikely to be the soundtrack to anyone's dinner party. Their songs ebb and flow and often culminate in a total cacophony of squally feedback and noise.

Live, the band are no less arresting. Ellis leaps around like a dervish, kicks like a skinny, beardy Elvis and makes - as Rolling Stone noted - 'violin playing look like a lascivious, illicit act'.

Ellis has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1996 and Turner and White have collaborated with a number of artists including Cat Power, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and PJ Harvey.

The Dirty Three have also curated the UK's seminal alternative festival 'All Tomorrow's Parties' and also appeared at its sister festival in New York reprising their classic 1998 album 'Ocean Songs' to great acclaim.

Their last studio album 'Cinder' saw the band break away from all instrumentals by including two songs with vocals by Cat Power and Sally Timms of The Mekons.

Warren Ellis says ...

“Dirty Three are still Warren Ellis, Mick Turner and Jim White. Formed in 1992 in Melbourne Australia they are still a three piece instrumental group of violin, guitar and drums. Since we recorded Cinder and toured it in 2005 we haven't managed to record a new album. Well, we are half way through it at the moment. Bands and babies have conspired against us!

Jim White has been out and about recording and touring with Bonnie Prince Billy, Bill Callahan and Cat Power and contributing to albums by PJ Harvey, Marianne Faithful. Mick has been painting, holding exhibitions, reproducing, playing solo shows and recording soundtracks for film & television and touring with Will Oldham in Australasia. I have been recording and touring with the Bad Seeds, forming Grinderman and recording soundtracks for films with Nick Cave, most notably The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the upcoming adaptation of The Road. Whilst we may not have been in the studio as Dirty Three we have been recording in our other outfits - frequently, actually, a lot.

In 2007 the Australian director Darcey Maine released a thrilling documentary on Dirty Three that maps the formation and development of the group via a series of interviews with people involved in the group that culminates in a live concert in Japan. We have continued to be a presence on the touring circuit, having curated ATP in 2006, then taking part in the inaugural event in Australia in 2009. We performed at the event in New York, playing Ocean Songs in its entirety. We toured the U.S and I must say, we are in fine form: showroom condition. It's the first time I've actually noticed the benefit of doing all these other projects on the way we play together. We gladly play the hits and the ones that got away. On a good day there's nothing quite like us on the stage - and you can quote me on that.”