First Winter Sesh builds on summer success

SMASHING IT: Smash Palace owner Darryl Monteith and promoter Rori White take a moment on the venue’s new, improved stage. But they won’t be resting on their yannies for long. The inaugural Smash Winter Sesh warms up the stage on Saturday. Picture by Paul Rickard

Exactly five months out from the Smash Summer Sesh is the inaugural Smash Winter Sesh. Promoter Rori White has scoured out of town venues to bring an eclectic range of alt-rock acts to Smash Palace’s new, improved stage. A side wall has been knocked down — on purpose, not by an enthusiastic pogo-artist — to create more space and more sight-lines.

Imported acts include Auckland three-piece Bloodnut, an all-ginger, stoner, doom sludge band who describe their sound as catchy-goodness.

Palmerston North-based Dick Tracy is in the line-up. The band features hard rock roots with blues influences, repetitive melodic phrasing and heavy stoner-influenced grooves.

Hawke’s Bay-based four-piece Diamond Doll promise a hybrid of old-style new-school rock with gritty overtones of grunge, metal and punk.

“Made up of two guys and two gals, the band creates a raw and honest sound hard to pin, powered by gravelly vocals, heavy guitars and double kicks,” says their Facebook biography.

They’re not metal, they’re not punk and they’re not goth but those flavours are all in there somewhere with hard-working, genre-defying Gisborne band Uni-Fi whose distinctive character brings an almost theatrical component to their performances. Other local acts include Sit Down in Front with their early punk and a surprising sense of irony for young fullas. Then there is Society’s Addiction who describe themselves as a band “descended from the gods to reap havoc on corruption in this realm”. Bad-Tongue-Mephisto could well be Society’s Addiction’s ride to Smash but good luck getting home.

For $20 you get six bands, a full moon and filthy noise. And five months from now you get to do it all again but in sunnies and boardies.

Smash Winter Sesh. Smash Palace, Saturday. Tickets $20 from the bar.