The Kooks Announce Auckland Show

Brit-pop outfit The Kooks have announced they will be playing one New Zealand show in the new year, which will see the lads joined by local punk stalwarts Die! Die! Die!. The all ages performance at Auckland's Vector Arena is the group's first stop before they head over to Australia for a four-date tour following this month's release of their much-anticipated fourth studio album Listen. Here's the show details...

The Kooks
Thursday 15th January 2015, Vector Arena, Auckland

Here's a video for 2006 hit 'Ooh La' from their debut album Inside In/Inside Out

PRESS RELEASE:

THE KOOKS ANNOUNCE AUCKLAND SHOW JANUARY 2015
With Special Guests: DIE! DIE! DIE!

Chugg Entertainment and XIII Touring can confirm that Brit-pop revivalists, The Kooks, will be returning to Australasia for their most monstrous tour of the antipodes to date.

First stop is Auckland, New Zealand on Thursday 15th January at Vector Arena, before the tour then heads over to Australia for four dates. Starting in Perth on Saturday 17th January at the Belvoir Amphitheatre, the tour then takes in Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Tuesday 20th January, Brisbane’s Riverstage on Friday 23rd January and wrapping things up at Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne on Saturday 24th January.

The Kooks released their eagerly anticipated new album Listen (Virgin/EMI) earlier this month, with Q Mag stating “This is a very good album. The Kooks sound like a band rejuvenated”. Produced by Luke Pritchard and young hip-hop pioneer Inflo, it showcases a new direction and sound for the multi-platinum selling UK act. They already laid down the gauntlet with swaggering first taster Down, then followed up with second single Around Town, which was another shift away from classic Kooks into unchartered territory and was the first track written for the forthcoming album.

“To me,” Luke says, “this album is about pure expression. Even the way we made the album felt fresh. Rather than us just being a band in a room, playing our guitars with the vocal over the top, which is what we’d always done before, we were really listening to what was going on around us, picking up ideas. The whole thing was much more natural.”

Fronted by vocalist/guitarist Luke Pritchard and guitarist Hugh Harris, the band formed in Brighton in 2004 at Brighton Music College. Realising they shared similar tastes, they took their name from a song on David Bowie's Hunky Dory and recorded a demo tape that, along with a handful of gigs, soon gathered interest from several record labels. Merely four months after their formation, the group signed with Virgin Records. They recorded their debut, Inside In/Inside Out, in 2005, releasing early the following year. Debuting at nine on the U.K. charts, it climbed its way to two as You Don't Love Me reached 12, while Naïve and She Moves in Her Own Way cracked the U.K. Top 10. All these hits helped Inside In/Inside Out achieve quadruple-platinum status in the U.K. and in Australia, earning a platinum certification.

Joining The Kooks for the Auckland show are special guests and NZ natives Die! Die! Die! The Dunedin noise-punk 3-piece have just released their 5th album SWIM, continuing their knack for delivering unyielding, reckless and abrasive songs with the bursting melodies the band is known for. Having just finished touring the new album through New Zealand and Australia in August, the band are heading to Europe this October. With frontman Andrew Wilson and drummer Michael Prain enlisting new member (and former Mint Chick) Michael Logie on bass, this is the Die! Die! Die! spirit at it’s best, with their unfiltered and powerful stage show earning them a fierce reputation as one of the most energetic bands around.