Some of the more astute readers might’ve picked up on New Zealand techno-pop band Headless Chickens upcoming reunion shows, well this might be your only chance to see them.
The band recently reformed after being asked by Sydney festival Homebake.“Joe from Homebake e-mailed me about four months ago and said ‘If we offered you lots of money would you consider reforming to come over and play in Sydney?’ and I said ‘Well, it probably depends on how much money.’ It’s quite an expensive thing to do.” Headless Chicken Chris Matthews told Undercover.
“So he came back with an offer that was quite good, so one thing lead to another. We thought if we were going to go and do Homebake then we thought we oughta do a few other shows in Australia and a few shows in New Zealand.”
The gigs are sure to please all their old fans, as Matthews explained “We went through every record song by song and decided which ones we could actually play. It’s been most of them actually. We’re pretty much doing the bulk of all the stuff of ‘Stunt Clown’, ‘Body Blow’ and the first EP and probably only a couple of tracks off the last album which I don’t even know was released in Australia anyway.
“There were a few songs even at the time that were quite tricky to play, so those are the ones we’ve decided to give a miss to, like a couple of tracks off the first EP, one of which Johnny our original bass player sang, who is actually dead, so we couldn’t do that one.”
“There is maybe only about three tracks off ‘Stunt Clown’ that we’re not doing.”
But the band went through a lot of effort to track down the original synthesisers they used twenty years ago. “That’s actually been a bit of a mission trying to find all the old bits of technology that we used to use back in the day, but we have actually found them all.
“Some of the things we’ve modified them a little to make them more up to date, but we’re pretty much playing the same things. I particularly wanted to make particularly the early songs off the first EP and the first album sound exactly like how we used to play them back in the day. Who the hell wants to go and see a band from 20 years ago sound like something else?”
If your love of this blend of pure pop with underground sensibilities is inspiring you to get out and check them out, be aware this will be your only chance.
“It’s been a lengthy process of rehearsals and pre-production and stuff, but we’re doing gigs from the end of November through to the Big Day Out [Auckland only], then we’ll look at some other gigs around New Zealand early next year, February or March, but there are no plans for it to be permanent at all.
“We’re not young and fancy free anymore.”
You can check out the newly reformed Headless Chickens at:
DECEMBER
4 - The HiFi Bar, Melbourne
5 - The Gaelic Club, Sydney
6 - Homebake Festival, Domain, Sydney
