Black Seeds at the Civic
On a slightly cold but not wet Christchurch evening, people of all cultures and creeds (that are tolerated in our enthusiastic, but small city), congregated together to celebrate what has now almost become a cultural institution. This was last Friday night, September 12th to be exact, when I lined up with the rest of the crowd at the venue ‘The Civic’ to get in and check out long-time favourites The Black Seeds, who are touring their fifth and latest album “Solid Ground” (see V.G Article from for more details).
They were supported by local groups The Oakley ‘OG’ Grenell live band, and The Dubwise Soundsystem who got the crowd all nicely warmed up and feeling the vibes. OG and guests started around 10pm or so, with their ‘roots rock’ live ensemble. Oakley who was mostly on guitar (and vocals on Bob Marley cover ‘Kaya’) appeared on stage with a full cast of stars including 2 singers, 2 MCs and other assorted musicians. The crowd was really digging their tunes and loving the positive atmosphere they created.
Next was Dubwise who although are personal favourites of mine, seemed as though they should have been first in the line up. No disrespect meant to MC Snypa Levi and DJ Messenjah, but it was hard for the pair to hold the crowds attention after the interactive groove-fest that was the OG band. Now this may say more about the crowd than the artists, but my opinion still stands, they should have started the gig first up, with OG in the middle.
Just after midnight the crowd rocketed into full force as they anticipated the presence of the mighty Black Seeds, who kicked off the set with one of their recent singles “Slingshot” (from the new album) and fired off a few more songs before saying a big hello to the highly stimulated crowd, who responded accordingly. The double-edged-sword of the Christchurch live scene is that crowds go wild, so they are guaranteed to react, but not always as expected. This means that they can either be very vocally supportive, or obnoxious and aggressive, more so than other main centres of New Zealand. On this peaceful Friday night though, all the goodness came alive, with very little anger and the only pushing in the sold out crowd, was in time to the beat.
It seems that after years of touring both locally and around the globe, the boys have perfected the art of the live gig and are quite the consummate professionals, knowing exactly when to bust out the right song, to tickle the crowds fancy. They played a great range of songs spanning all their albums, including a personal favourite of mine “Coming back home”. The attended masses were definitely not disappointed, and went away with a funky satisfied feeling. Not only due to the powerful music, trippy visual displays and the sweet smells of marijuana hanging patiently in the air, but mainly due to the reverie from a night of good times shared by all. The Black Seeds irresistible mixture of reggae, dub and funk all thrown together to create a party vibe, has been the backbone of many casual barbecues and back-yard-cricket games, and will live on for many summers to come. Viva la The Black Seeds!
-Video For the single ‘Slingshot’-
If you’re after more info or details: check out The Black Seeds awesome website
…where you can listen to their songs and play with giraffes!
“Love is given, taken away
Never take more than you give I say
Life has a way of telling us
When your causing a mess or fuss”
(Slingshot – The Black Seeds)
Until next time …Yossarian
1 Comment to Black Seeds at the Civic
[…] for the third instalment of multi-visual merriment. That’s right Barnaby Weir (front man of The Black Seeds) is taking his crew of travelling musicians and story-tellers around New Zealand with a new show […]
Leave a comment
Search
Latest Articles
- Mike Who – Fresh Mixtape for yo ears… Niceness Vol 1
- Omar Musa – World Goes to Pieces
- Rise Festival – Melbourne Sunday
- Space Invadas Launch Soul-Fi Tour
- Pataphysics Remix – Mos Def: History featuring Talib Kweli (REMIX)
- Fink is in Melbourne
- Dead Prez Melbourne side show with Pataphysics
- Olmecha Supreme VS Pataphysics kicks off
- Departure Lounge In Session
- Tahuna Breaks – Black Brown & White
Archives
- August 2010
- July 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- January 2010
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- April 2008
- December 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- June 2007
May 7, 2009