New
Zealand loves Postmodern
Jukebox! Following three successful tours in as many years, the
multi-talented collective will bring their re-imagined contemporary pop, rock
and R&B hits in the style of various yesteryears back to eagerly awaiting
fans in 2018.
PMJ’s
New Zealand tour opens up in Tauranga on
Tuesday
2 October and moves on to
Napier on
Wednesday 3 October,
Auckland on
Friday 5 October,
New Plymouth on
Saturday 6 October and
Wellington on
Sunday 7 October before
winding up in
Christchurch on
Monday 8 October.
Tickets go on sale
at 10am local time on Friday 9 February for
the six-city tour.
Each time around, PMJ looks
forward to bringing their unique spin on modern pop hits and retro pop stylings
to new cities for the first time, as well as
revisiting favourite haunts that welcome them back with eagerly open
arms. And as any PMJfan can tell you, the experience is never the same twice, with new songs, new
sounds, and new members added to the ever-growing family each time
around.
Since Scott Bradlee created the project in 2009, PMJ has amassed more than
900 million YouTube views and 3.2 million subscribers, chalked up more
than 1 million likes on Facebook, performed on “Good Morning America,”
topped iTunes and Billboard charts, caught the attention of NPR Music and
NBC News, and played hundreds of shows to sold-out houses around the
world.
That seemingly exhausting pace hasn’t stopped Bradlee from arranging
and recording new arrangements every week for PMJ’s legion of fans.
Imagine marrying the 21st Century party vibe of Miley Cyrus or the minimalist
angst of Radiohead with the crackly warmth of a vintage 78 or the plunger-muted
barrelhouse howl of a forgotten Kansas City jazzman. Bradlee’s choice
of material ranges from the ‘80s hard rock of Guns N’ Roses to hits as recent
as 2015’s Justin Bieber plea “Sorry.” They’re rendered by a rotating cast of
musicians and singers in fashions that date back to a time when Axl, Slash
and Bieber’s parents had yet to be born – a time of street corner harmonies and
torch singers, blues belters and golden-voiced crooners.
Last year, PMJcollected 18 favourites to compile The Essentials for Concord
Records. The album featured the songs that Bradlee has called
“most essential to the PMJuniverse,” including hits by Beyoncé, the White Stripes,
Lorde, Outkast and Maroon 5 – along with the song that put the band
on the map, a vaudevillian distressing of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift
Shop” fronted by Robyn Adele Anderson that garnered more than a million views
within a week of being posted. The pin-up styled singer returned for the
album’s opener, their ‘50s doo-wop version of Miley Cyrus’ celebration of an
inhibition-shedding spree, “We Can’t Stop,” which garnered more than 19.5
million views and was named one of the “9 Best Viral Cover Videos of 2015” by
People magazine.
PMJ has
long since outgrown the cramped confines of Bradlee’s small apartment
in Queens, NY, where the original videos were shot at a time when he was one of
countless struggling musicians in the city, to play some of the most heralded
stages in the world. The spirit, though, has remained the same – a collective
of musicians dedicated to the timelessness of music, performing songs vibrantly
and without a trace of irony. And the media has taken notice: Entertainment
Weekly wrote, “Scott Bradlee’s group is known for
retro-fying modern hit songs into viral success,” while Yahoo! Music
added, “if you’ve been on YouTube in the last couple of years, then you’re
familiar with the everything-new-is-old-again brilliance of the viral
phenomenon known as Postmodern Jukebox.”
“I take pride in putting together the right powers and personalities to create
a unique and amazing experience for our fans,” Bradlee says. “We want
them to escape reality and join us for the most sensational 1920s party this
side of The Great Gatsby. We want them to experience what it was like to be at
the New Years' Eve show that Sinatra would have hosted in the 1940s. We want
them to feel the excitement of hearing the greats of Motown live and up close.
Our goal is to give our audiences their favorite show again and again and still
have it feel like the very first time."
TOUR DATES :
TAURANGA - Tuesday 2 October –
Addison Theatre
NAPIER - Wednesday
3 October – Municipal Theatre
AUCKLAND - Friday
5 October – Great Hall
NEW PLYMOUTH - Saturday
6 October – Theatre Royal
WELLINGTON - Sunday
7 October – Opera House
CHRISTCHURCH - Monday
8 October – Isaac Theatre
General public tickets
on-sale date:Friday 9 February, 10am local time from
www.tegdainty.com
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