Gnarls Barkley & The Rapture - Big Nights In

In 2007 the U.K.'s legendary V Festival debuts in Australia, with one day events being staged in Sydney on March 31 and on the Gold Coast on April 1.

En route to those dates, 5 of the major names in the V Festival line up are stopping off in Auckland to play 4 big nights at the St James.

Gnarls Barkley is the remarkable collaboration between Baltimore DJ and producer Danger Mouse, and rapper / singer Cee-Lo from Atlanta.

Coming together in 2003, their debut song “Crazy” created history when it became the first ever single to reach #1 in the UK based on download sales alone. It made New Zealand chart history by sitting at the top for a record 7 weeks! The enormous hit sparked a huge wave of anticipation for their debut album “St Elsewhere”.

Steeped in gospel and blues, merging timeless soul with experimental funk and hip-hop, add to the mix a dramatic voice and soul-rummaging lyrics, and you quickly realise “St Elsewhere” is a psychedelic, soul masterpiece. Selling a million copies worldwide and reaching Platinum sales in New Zealand, the album has since spawned another 3 hits, “Smiley Faces”, “Gone Daddy Gone”, and most recently “Who Cares”. Gnarls Barkley's music bears Marvin Gaye’s depth of feeling, Jeff Buckley’s emotive theatrics, and wild courage not seen since Prince’s prime. Behold the most exciting debut of 2006!

When it comes to their live shows - anything goes. They performed at the MTV Movie Awards dressed as Star Wars characters, fronted up at Lollapalooza in tennis whites, performed in Philadelphia dressed in surgical scrubs, and hit the stage at V Festival in the U.S dressed in togas with Cee-Lo wearing a breast plate and helmet. You get the picture. Don’t miss one of the most anticipated new live acts around at their very first New Zealand show - GNARLS BARKLEY will astound.

Sharing the spot light with GNARLS BARKLEY will be special guests THE RAPTURE making their debut New Zealand appearance. After the release of their much-lauded 2003 debut “Echoes”, New York four-piece THE RAPTURE returned in late 2006 with “Pieces of the People We Love”. Recorded with a team of producers including Danger Mouse in Los Angeles, the album was preceded by the spectacular single, “Get Myself Into It” - which can only be described as “summer in a song.” The album winds a diverse musical course, reeling from the pop-funk sounds of the grins-so-hard-it-hurts “Whoo! Alright-Yeah…Uh Huh.” to the psychedelic “Live In Sunshine”, to showing their softer side on tunes like “Calling Me”, to finally wiping the slate clean with the blast of energy on "The Sound”. With glowing accolades swirling around the bands live show - heralded as the “party everyone’s invited to” – THE RAPTURE are unmissable.

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