Dimmer Announce 'I Believe You Are A Star' 20th Anniversary Tour

At the turn of the millennium, Dunedin icon Shayne P. Carter unleashed the long-awaited debut album from Dimmer, answering the question of what could possibly follow his global success with Straitjacket Fits. Created over five years and launched in 2001 via Sony Records, Carter embraced the newly accessible world of digital music production to write and record I Believe You Are A Star, as detailed in the artist's candid award-winning autobiography Dead People I Have Known. He emerged from the process artistically renewed and fresh-faced with a decidedly non-rock sonic palette, encompassing moody avant-electronica, motorik, funk and soul, serving up killer single / videos 'Evolution', 'Seed', 'I Believe You Are a Star' and 'Drop You Off'.

Celebrating two decades since the new dawn of the Dimmer era, Carter has assembled a stellar band to perform songs from I Believe You Are A Star as they have never been played before, all throughout Aotearoa in September and October. Joined by Dimmer veterans Gary Sullivan (JPSE) and James Duncan, Carter's live band also includes Dimmer engineer / co-producer Nick Roughan (Skeptics) on keyboards and electronics, Louisa Nicklin, Neive Strang and Die Die Die bassist Lachlan Anderson. Carter shared his excitement for how the new Dimmer lineup will bring his personal favourite album to life on stage this spring...

“My main inspiration when writing and recording Star was to make a record entirely different from the rock n roll glory of the Straitjacket Fits. I wanted to make a beautiful record that didn’t need to beat it’s chest or prove that it could ‘rock’. It was influenced by the drift and throb of ambient music, krautrock, electronica, outsider pop and the dark funk of Sly Stone, James Brown and Funkadelic. It was also influenced by a totally naive approach to the then relatively new digital recording process. Attempting to emulate the record live is a mostly new and not inconsiderable musical challenge, but I’m extremely excited by the prospect of a show sonically and spiritually in tune with an album I still consider my best.” 

UnderTheRadar proudly presents...

Dimmer I Believe You Are A Star 20th Anniversary Tour

Saturday 11th September - Blue Smoke, Christchurch*
Saturday 18th September - San Fran, Wellington*
Saturday 25th September - Mercury Theatre, Auckland
Saturday 2nd October - Mayfair Theatre, Dunedin

*Tickets available HERE via UTR 
Auckland tickets available HERE
Dunedin tickets available HERE

Experience the vintage video for the title track to I Believe You Are A Star...

Press release:

Dimmer’s I Believe You Are A Star, released in 2001, is rightly regarded as a classic and one of the great New Zealand records of the 2000s. Written and nearly entirely performed by Shayne Carter, the album was five years in gestation and Carter’s first album following the demise of his most well known band Straitjacket Fits.

Now Carter has convened a seven piece band for a special one off tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this legendary recording. This version of Dimmer will be performing the album in it’s entirety.

The line up features old Dimmer hands James Duncan (guitar) and Gary Sullivan who drummed on the original record. They’ll be joined by Die Die Die bassist Lachlan Anderson and two up and coming solo talents, Louisa Nicklin (guitar /vocals) and Neive Strang (vocals/percussion ) Long time Dimmer engineer and co producer Nick Roughan (Skeptics, David Kilgour) shifts to the other side of the desk to supply keyboards and live electronics.

Because the record was a studio creation a lot of the material has rarely been performed live. Carter says the big band format will allow, for the first time, a fully realised live representation of the album, whereas, in the past, Dimmer has “played three or four piece guitar band versions of the songs”.