The road to tonight’s New Model Army concert was like an indie movie plotline.
I was stuck in a locked-up traffic jam on the Northern motorway, coned into the worry of not making the gig on time.
On arrival at the venue, I discovered that it was Red Raven New’s photographer Leoni’s car that had been in the accident that caused the hold up. She made it to the gig though. A policeman delivered her to the front door.
Leoni is a genius with cameras, Dutch stoic as well. She still had a great attitude about the art she was going to do with her camera. She said that she had had a premonition about a car accident while driving to the gig, then sneezed, and….
New Model Army’s road to the gig was a to do as well.
They had never played Australia or New Zealand in their career. Ticket sales weren’t quite as good as they hoped, and they were cornered into cancelling their New Zealand date because of high overheads.
Honourably they didn’t cancel their booking. They arrived as a two-piece.
Founding member Justin Sullivan and Dean White spent 30 hours in New Zealand and flew from Australia to fulfil their obligation.
I had noticed walking into the Tuning Fork there was no drum kit on stage, and Dean White was acting as the band stage roadie as well. I thought perhaps they were going to do an electronica performance.
I always saw their albums in the music store racks in the 80’s but never picked one up for some reason. On homework listening, I realize I missed out on gems. They had a great well-produced sound. Lots of mid forward bass lines, tribal drums, tunes, and great lyrics.
Justin and Dean had performed as a duo before in the US and Europe. I didn’t know that and was expecting a stripped back first-time experiment on their songs. When the two arrived on stage with an acoustic and electric guitar, the crowd was very accepting of the situation they were cornered into.
They opened with BIGO. As Justin played a fat bass line with his thumb on the E string of his acoustic guitar, and Dean played ambient electric, they sounded BIG.
Being a two-piece, and not a five-piece band, they did sound different to their records.
What came to the fore was the pull of the North, the days of York (they are from Bradford, Yorkshire) and the folky and roots essence of the songs. They have often been noted as having strong Folk elements, and in this form, it was obvious. Out in the open were Justin’s rebel rousing lyrics.
They locked well together with vocal harmony and on guitars. While Dean would shuffle around the guitar neck adding dimensional ambient parts, he would also lock in tightly with Justin,
playing rhythm so tightly, that it would sound like one huge fat guitar tone. I approve. Every now and then Dean would play keyboards, and on the odd occasion, use a sequence.
Justin mentioned he had visited New Zealand for a holiday 30 years back. Feeling pretty screwed in the head, he visited Paekakariki Beach. He wrote a song called Paekakariki Beach which they had never performed live before.
He did this evening. It went over well.
There have been a few British writers who have written about depression while visiting the South Island. Elvis Costello’s Rocking Horse Road comes to mind.
When people enthusiastically heckled for desired requests, Justin politely announced that the group has 250 songs, and that you have more chance of winning the NZ lottery than hearing your favourite.
He also added that when the band came in through the window of Punk, it was all about attitude over technical ability in music. He punctuated by saying that it was an approach they still adhere to.
Justin told the crowd that New Model Army plays every type of festival. Folk, Rock, Punk, Metal, New Wave. Because no one knows what the f—k we are!
Justin Sullivan took pride in adding that the band was never huge because they never give the audience what they want. Very Punk. Good on ya mate!
While New Model Army didn’t deliver what was expected at the Tuning Fork, they did give the audience what they wanted.
Travel safe gentlemen.
John Kempt
Photography by Leonie Moreland
