Classic Bilders Reform 2010

The classic lineup of Christchurch-Dunedin group The Bilders will reform for two concerts only in December 2010. The group that had a huge local pop hit with Do the Alligator has in the past included members of other South Island bands Toy Love, The Terminals, Scorched Earth Policy, The Axemen, The Bats, The Clean and The Renderers.

Stuart Page (drummer) recently completely a 37 date USA tour with his other band (also from Christchurch-Dunedin) The Axemen. Greig Bainbridge (bass) has just finished ten years of music teaching at Burnside High School. Second vocalist and keyboardist Richard Anderton has performed with The Bilders since the '80s and '90s, complements Bill Direen’s declamatory style. Direen (vocalist/guitarist and songwriter), also a novelist and poet, is currently Writer in Residence at the Michael King Centre in Auckland. He has brought the band together to coincide with a trip south to visit family. Since British group The Fall will be playing in Auckland the same weekend, some see these concerts as the next best thing. Some will see them as even better.

The group will be performing songs from the entire Bilders catalogue of fourteen albums and a string of singles and EPs. Requests for favourite songs have been flooding in to their website http://south.indies.free.fr

South Indies is planning to rerelease all the Bilders classic albums from the 1980s next year, to coincide with the anniversary of the label they helped to found, Flying Nun. More information on poet-singer Direen can be found on the website of the Michael King Centre http://www.writerscentre.org.nz or the site of the label that has brought a lot of his recent material to light: http://www.powertoolrecords.co.nz.

The concerts, appropriately enough for a group more popular in the South Island than the North will be in hometowns Christchurch and Dunedin. More information on the history of The Bilders can be found at http://south.indies.free.fr.

The Classic Bilders perform:
El Santo, Lyttelton (Christchurch), Thursday December 9th
Chicks Nightclub, Port Chalmers (Dunedin), December 10th

Event listed by maxquitz

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