Young veterans announce second NZ tour of 2009 for Alice By The Moon
On the back of their acclaimed chart album Alice By The Moon and new single ‘Till The Dance Is Over’, September and October sees The Checks set to undertake their second national jaunt of the year, playing the country’s main centres in the company of kindred spirits Bang Bang Eche.
That the band’s last NZ tour was as recently as July should come as no surprise: since their inception, The Checks have clocked up more road miles and stage time than most bands could hope to manage in decades.
Within a year of leaving high school, The Checks had toured with REM and Oasis, and played the 2005 NME New Music Tour alongside The Cribs, The Rakes and Maximo Park. The band has unleashed their maximum r’n’r across New Zealand countless times, taking in all the nation’s most important festivals; played Australia with both Muse and Jet; traversed the clubs of Europe; and rocked NYC.
In 2007 alone, the band toured the UK no less than seven times with their debut album Hunting Whales, which had been produced at London’s RAK Studios with Ian “Kingbird” Broudie (Lightning Seeds, Terry Hall, Echo and the Bunnymen) at the controls.
Their second album Alice By The Moon – self-produced and self-released – bears the fruit of the band’s relentless pounding-of-the-boards, with prescient songwriting bearing the unmistakeable marks of high energy, sweat-drenched nocturnal kicks.
Acclaim has been widespread: the album has been deemed “intoxicating, raucous and beautifully distorted…” (New Zealand Herald); possessing a “…pulse-pounding energy and nothing less…” (In Your Speakers); and represents “…a midpoint between late 60s melodic psychedelic rock and the density of Sonic Youth…think Fleetwood Mac's Albatross conceived by Syd Barrett in Thurston Moore’s cement mixer” (Graham Reid, Elsewhere).
Joining The Checks for this tour are Bang! Bang! Eche!, the Christchurch-spawned group whose colourful upward trajectory has seen them become the toast of this year’s SXSW, and whose similarly voracious appetite for the live experience has taken them through NZ and Australia, the USA, UK and beyond.
THE CHECKS
Fri Sep 25 - Wellington – Bodega
w/ Bang! Bang! Eche!
and Knives At Noon
Fri Oct 2 - Hamilton - Flow
w/ Bang! Bang! Eche!
and The Lookie Loo's
Sat Oct 3 - Auckland - Monte Cristo
w/ Bang! Bang! Eche!
and Knives At Noon
Thu Oct 8 - Christchurch - Al's Bar
w/ Bang! Bang! Eche!
and Knives At Noon
Fri Oct 9 - Dunedin - 10 Bar
w/ Bang! Bang! Eche!
and Knives At Noon
