Her make believe band tour

Her Make Believe Band Tour

Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Cy Winstanley and vocalist/double bassist Vanessa McGowan from Her Make Believe Band will be travelling the length of the New Zealand in a Spaceship campervan during March/April 2010 performing their unique blend of acoustic country folk on a 15-date tour of New Zealand.

Currently based in London, this tour marks the two Kiwis return to their homeland and is a celebration of Her Make Believe Band's debut album, AM Radio. Released in 2009, AM Radio has received rave reviews in the UK.

Spaceships are pleased to sponsor Her Make Believe Band on their tour of New Zealand - visit their website for more details www.hermakebelieveband.com

March

Thursday 25th          Auckland - The Wine Cellar

Sunday 28th             Wellington - Acoustic Routes at The Ruby Lounge

Wednesday 31st       Wanganui - Repertory Theatre

April

Thursday 1st                Katikati - Katikati Folk Club

Sunday 4th               Auckland - Nightingales

Tuesday 6th             Kerikeri - Bishops Wood Estate

Thursday 8th            Wellington - Mighty Mighty

Sunday 11th             Palmerston North - The Bent Horseshoe Cafe

Wednesday 14th       Golden Bay - The Mussel Inn

Friday 16th               Wanaka - The Riverhouse

Saturday 17th           Oamaru - The Penguin Entertainers Club

Sunday 18th             Christchurch - Christchurch Folk Club Dux de Lux

Wednesday 21st       Picton - Le Cafe Picton

Friday 23rd              Nelson - Fairfield House

Sunday 25th            Auckland - The Bunker

‘AM Radio' is available in NZ now through itunes & Amplifier.co.nz

Tour Blog

Wednesday 24th March -1 day until Tour Opening Night

Vanessa: Before we boarded the plane at Heathrow we had been moving house, putting our stuff in storage, packing for 7 weeks in New Zealand, finishing off the final touches to the tour schedule and working on a couple of new tunes for our set. Needless to say it was a busy week and in hindsight moving house while preparing for a tour is not the smartest idea! When we finally made it to our Air NZ flight from London to Auckland we were completely exhausted and ready for a whiskey to kick start the tour. The benefit of flying Air NZ was that they had L&P and we made ample use of it as a delicious mixer for our celebratory whiskeys.

A couple of days of rest and relaxation just north of Auckland and now we're into promo for the tour, doing a nice circuit of local and national radio including Kiwi FM, bFM, Newstalk ZB, Up FM and Radio Live.

Tomorrow we kick off the tour with the Opening Night and Album Release Show at The Wine Cellar on K'Rd, and we're excited to have Flip Grater joining us. So far there have been 3 swims in the ocean and 3 runs (Cy), plus a lot of sushi and good coffee (two things that are scarce and/or ridiculously expensive in London) and we're really looking forward to hitting the road on Friday in our Spaceship Campervan for the rest of our NZ tour!

Saturday 27th March

Cy: The first week of our stay in NZ has been an incredibly welcoming one.  I say this in the musical, family, climate and general activity sense.  While those that reside in NZ on a permanent basis may bemoan the seasonal shift and the decline in temperature towards the winter, for us grey-faced London dwellers it’s positively balmy, thus making most activities much, much more fun. We’ve had some great swims, done some beautiful driving and been on some awe inspiring runs and bike rides.  When it comes to natural beauty and it’s abundance, New Zealand is truly a place of no equal.

Promo-wise, it’s been quite an intense week with the bulk of our radio appearances heaped together at the start of the tour.  But, whilst being intense, it’s also been immensely fun.  We’ve had some great interviews and played some fun (and often early!) live-to airs.  We’ve even been posed the question ‘scrunch or fold?’  I didn’t have any idea what it referred to, so just picked ‘scrunch’ with little hesitation, only to find that ‘scrunch’ is an answer seldom chosen by men.  The question refers to…lets say…the way one chooses to grasp that few squares of 2 play tissue paper that hangs on the wall. I’ll leave it at that.

Ah, now to the music.  Only one gig so far, but a cracker gig at that.  Our album release was on Thursday at the Wine Cellar in Auckland.  Good turnout, a lively bunch consisting of a few old friends and many new ones.  The marvellous Flip Grater played a touching set to start off the evening, then left the two of us to cluster around our brand spanking new condenser mic, which was mixed beautifully by the uber sound-man skills of Paul Winstanley.  Some new songs were played, some lyrics were forgotten, some new ones were made up and some scat singing was sung in parts where the mind went blank altogether.

In Whanganui (Wanga? Whanga?) at present, heading out to Wellington tomorrow for our show at The Ruby Lounge, then ‘Good Morning’ on Monday morning.  Back then to Whanganui (our NZ home away from home) for our show on Wednesday at the Repertory Theatre.  Will write more after Wellington. Xoxox.

PS.  Also started collecting spoons.

Tuesday 6th April - Three gigs and some serious driving.

Cy: Our first performance away from home turf, Wellington was a treat.  As with all of our gigs so far, lovely hosts contributed to the success of the evening.  It’s early in our tour at this point, but already we have seen immense hospitability and a seldom seen openness from people welcoming us, a couple of strangers, into their homes, and along with the performance related ‘obligations’ (most folk club associated people are volunteers and do it purely for the love of music), feeding and bedding us.  Mary Livingston hosted a great night at The Ruby Lounge with –Helen Dorothy and Laurie Dameron playing support.

Whanganui was a homecoming of sorts for Vanessa, with the paternal half of her family hailing from the city divided in how it should be pronounced.  The Repertory Theatre is a beautiful little theatre and the night was made extra-smooth by the PR/lights/doorman/teaman skills of John McGowan, Vanessa’s dad! No complaints when the usual half time tea and bikkies were veganised with soymilk, hobnobs and mandarins, nor were there any complaints from our condenser microphone, whose sound was controlled solely by us and a borrowed 31 band eq.  Scary stuff indeed in a relatively sizeably theatre.  Very seldom at these sort of gigs is there a back stage area that is suitable for relaxing in prior to performance, the good old Rep’, however, was well equipped, complete with Monteiths Black and fake rifles for the theatre’s production of Chunuk Bair.

Katikati is a place that always caught the attention of anyone reading our touring schedule.  Why?  I don’t know.  Perhaps it’s that not everyone likes avocados?  It’s small, yes, but what a lovely, enthusiastic bunch, and a folk club of some renown.  The beginning of the evening was an uncertain one,  ‘Good’ Friday combined with what was described by our hosts as a ‘sleepy retirement’ town did not bode well for audience numbers, and 10 minutes before our scheduled start

time of 7.30 patrons were scarce.   But low and behold, the final 5

minutes saw a miraculous influx and what started as an empty Coromandel bowling club was soon a well stocked audience of lovely folkies!  Bryan and Tony provided a wonderful support set and Jennie’s (who, along with Tony were our hosts/cooks/and new friends) MC-ing was

lively and warming.   The following morning we were treated to a true

awakener of a swim in a friend of a new friend’s fresh water swimming

hole at the bottom of their garden.   Few things are more invigorating

than swimming in fresh river water.

So, there we have it.  1600km on the clock of our trusty Spaceship and many a short black later, 4 gigs down, 11 to go…..

Currently listening to: Joel Maebus – Short Stories, HEM – Rabbit Songs.

Photo: Vanessa outside Whanganui Repertory Theatre

Monday 19th April - The Quest For Ananominimity

Vanessa: After Katikati we headed back to Auckland to play Easter Sunday at the gorgeous Nightingales Supper Club in Devonport. We performed to a sold out and overflowing crowd (the host, Raewyn, couldn’t bare to turn those who showed up unannounced away even though it was officially full) and had a really lovely afternoon complete with vegan fudge that my mum made and vegan cupcakes that I whipped up the day before. Being Easter weekend we thought it would be nice to have some sweet vegan treats for everyone and the idea has spurred some exciting tour possibilities for the summer. Not saying any more just yet though!

We accepted the offer of an extra nights accommodation in the Bay Of Islands and left Monday morning for our Tuesday Kerikeri performance. We arrived at folk club organisers Denise and Richard’s place and they told us they’d been working hard and had organised a live-to-air on More FM for the next morning. We went in first thing and tried to sing some more people along to the show that night. Early morning radio live-to-airs are great for promo but it can be pretty hard trying to sing so early without sounding like your voice is being resonated through a phlegm filled gravel pit. We had been planning on going kayaking after the interview but it was raining and pretty miserable so we settled for running between op shops instead. We’re on the search for the perfect CD suitcase that can fit 20 CDs and open out to display one as well. We’ve found a couple but none has been perfect just yet…

The Kerikeri gig was to a modest but lovely crowd and we had a really great night playing and chatting to the audience afterwards. One of the nicest things about doing a tour and getting to some of the smaller centres is the people you meet. There have truly been some characters already and people in every place that I hope I can count as my friends.

From Kerikeri we headed all the way to Whanganui, a trip that pretty well wrote off the whole day and made us eager to see the back of our, nonetheless much loved and appreciated, Spaceship tour camper. Spending so much time in the car that day drove us into an hour-long discussion about the validity of the word ananominimity. A debate that turned into repeating the word so many times it lost the shred of meaning it may have started with. Cy then tried to squeeze the word into a misguided bluegrass tune and the whole debacle ended with Cy badgering me to sing harmonies to “ananominimity, ananominimity” and me, in not the most ladylike of fashions, declining.

The next day we had Mighty Mighty in Wellington so we loaded up our bright orange Spaceship NZ camper van hand drove the couple of hours to Wellington. Mighty Mighty was a venue I had booked on recommendation and had never actually been to before. I had built up a mental image of what it would be like and for some reason had visualized an underground, slightly dingy but, of course, very cool bar. When we walked up the stairs and around the corner into the bar I was greeted by sequins and neon and flags and glitter and just about the complete opposite of what I’d thought it would be. It was like walking into a carnival and it was definitely a brilliant surprise after what I’d been anticipating!

The gig went really well and we were lucky enough to have Flip Grater playing with us again, which was really fun. After waking up to the sunshine and sea view in Lyall Bay we went in to Radio NZ to perform and be interviewed by Jim Mora and, after a delicious Japanese lunch, headed back to our home-base in Whanganui to rest up.

Photo: Vanessa in curlers outside Nightingales (with vegan cupcakes)