May is NZ Music Month - WOO HOO!!! Get out there to the local venues, pubs & clubs and support NZ musicians. If you have the urge to see some larger acts though… here’s a small smorgasbord of rock & metal delights for you that are coming up in May & June:
Tonight at the Kings Arms we have a selection of Alt Rock bands: Audio Empire, Stolen, Inverse Order and Elepho. Tickets are $10 on the door.
Mon 5th May & Tue 6th May we have The Foo Fighters @ Vector Arena. Tickets are $101.50 each from Ticketmaster.
Sun 11th May & Mon 12th May we have The Stereophonics @ The Powerstation. Tickets are $75 from Ticketmaster and the promoter has just announced the release of a small allocation of tickets to this sold-out show–better act now–this is the final release of tickets for Stereophonics!
Wed 14th May. Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold and Bullet For My Valentine @ Auckland Town Hall. I bought a ticket for this show the minute they were made available. This is going to be huge. Can’t wait. 
Tickets are $75 from Ticketek & Real Groovy. It’s selling out fast but there are still some GA tickets available.
Wed 14th May. Stiff Little Fingers are playing at The Powerstation and clashing with Atreyu at The TownHall. ARRGGHHH!!! Split me in half someone please? The two stand out gigs for me this month and they’re on the same bloody day. Tickets are $65 from Ticketek.
Fri 16th May. Dragon are playing at the SkyCity Theatre. Tickets are $75 from Ticketek. Hands up if you know all the words to ‘April Sun in Cuba’?
Wed 21st May. Dillinger Escape Plan at Transmission Room. These guys are so bleeeeeping cool. I’lll be there with bells on. Not sure where to get tickets from but try the usual culprits, Ticketek, Real Groovy, Ticketmaster.
Fri 13th June. The Bravery @ The Kings Arms. Tickets $47.50 from Ticketmaster. Very polished sounding rock band with several top 10 hits in the US and UK and getting played quite a bit on The Rock here in NZ. Worth going and checking them out at a small venue whilst you get the chance.
Thu 26th June. Children of Bodom @ Transmission Room. Tickets $79.50 from Ticketek. Huge contempory metal band with several sell out tours under their belt. It’s melodic death metal and if you love killer guitar riffs and monster sounding solos then these guys are for you.
Thu 26th June. The Mars Volta @ Logan Campbell Centre. Tickets from Ticketek and Real Groovy.
The Mars Volta - well, if you don’t know who these guys are I suggest you use Google. They are unbelievably amazing and well worth going to see live. However, we have yet another event planning nightmare…. arrghh…. what is with event organizers in Auckland? Do you purposefully look to see which bands are playing and book them on the same night if they are music gods?
Sat 30th August. Panic At The Disco @ Vector Arena. Tickets $74.50 from Ticketmaster. An excellent live band who will be supported by ‘The Academy Is…’
That’s all for now folks….
Amanda
The Stereophonics are sold out!?Discuss: is NZ becoming the new Germany, where slighty-past-their-best bands can come and relive their glory days of having actual fans?
(although the best thing about Stereophonics was their munter-ish drummer, Stuart Cable, who was summarily dismissed a few years ago).
I know what you mean. I’ve seen a few bands coming through that I thought were dead and buried. It’s almost like NZ and other smaller population countries are used as testing grounds for come backs.
I thought the Stereophonics were still pretty huge Internationally? I like them but not enough to buy albums, bit too poppy for my ears. They released Pull The Pin late last year which went to #1 in the UK Album chart - good old wikipedia - so I guess some people out there must like ‘em.
Stiff Little Fingers definitely come into the category of past their best, I’m not sure if ’slightly’ comes into it there… I want to see them to see if they are as good as they were 15 years ago, but another part of me is reluctant to find out in case of disappointment.