It’s not easy getting them all in the same country at the same time, but back for the first time since 2014, Kiwi rock n roll pioneers, The Datsuns still know how to put on a damn good show and fill a crowd.
Kicking off the night with support from Bloodbags. Four guys over 6ft tall sweating out dirty, raw garage rock. They are everything you want garage punk rock to be and feel, and had some killer songs that helped set the tone for the night. If you’re familiar with The Kings Arms (as I’m sure nearly everyone is) it’s a small place, but The Datsuns and Bloodbags certainly made sure every inch of space was filled.
Bloodbags definitely got the crowd going and they were a lot of fun to watch onstage.
As soon as The Datsuns were about to hit the stage, cue the frenzy as many rushed from their respective corners to find a good vantage point. I remember seeing The Datsuns many times in the UK as a teenager and I was secretly stoked that they still get this kind of attention all these years later.
The Datsuns busted out an epic set list, including some from their classic self-titled debut album and the coolest cover of Fortune Son. The crowd went wild, and even some crowd surfing went down.
The Datsuns have refined their sound impressively over the years, and they still have that gritty rock n roll swag that everyone knows and love, with a mature Black Sabbath esque punch with a lot of their newer material. Pulling out all stops with favourites old and new, punters and probably even the bar staff, looked like they went home sated that night knowing one of New Zealand’s finest rock n roll outfits hasn't lost their touch.
A record that sprang from an experiment in Space and Time: The geographical Space between the four band members who all live in different parts of the world, and the short pocket of Time they had together in the same country to put something to tape.
‘The narrative of Deep Sleep is this: we got together, we wrote some songs and we recorded them in the space of ten days,’ says de Borst, ‘It was basically an experiment to see if we could do it and this is what we got, for better or worse. We had this manifesto of ‘we have to do this fast, it needs to fit within these sonic parameters, and we want to keep it simple.’’
Their almost nuclear family-like existence changed around five years ago when the four members settled in separate cities. Singer/bassist Dolf de Borst put down roots in Stockholm, Sweden, building a recording studio with Nicke Andersson (The Hellacopters, Imperial State Electric); guitarist Christian Livingstone returned to London, embracing the ways of a mad fuzz scientist and birthing his own FX pedal company, Magnetic Effects; guitarist Phil Somervell returned from Germany to Auckland, New Zealand, continuing his work as a squash coach and dabbling with other musical projects; and drummer Ben Cole, based himself permanently out of Wellington working as a session musician and playing with The Joint Chiefs and the Craig Terris Band.