“It was a three blanket night — meaning that he broke down from over-emotion three times in the course of the evening, and each time, he had to have a blanket thrown over his shoulders and be led off stage.
“I felt very privileged, but I was later told that he did that most nights. He also shouted at his band to ‘Take it to the bridge’ a lot and every time he did, that’s exactly what they’d do.”
McGlashan, who these days splits his time between Auckland and Vancouver, is best known as the co-founder and frontman of the iconic and internationally acclaimed The Mutton Birds.
Living in London in the 90s and signed to Virgin Records UK, The Mutton Birds forged an international audience.
Their album Envy Of Angels made the UK Sunday Times’ Ten Best Albums Of The Year list in 1996.
Before The Mutton Birds, Don was the drumming singer for seminal and hugely influential early ‘80s Auckland post-punk outfit Blam Blam Blam and then half of the equally popular acoustic theatre-music duo The Front Lawn.
Since The Mutton Birds, Don has made four solo albums, Warm Hand (2006), Marvellous Year (2009), Lucky Stars (2015), and Bright November Morning (2022), the latter of which was his first New Zealand number one album in a four decade career with top 10 albums in each decade.
The musician has made five entries in APRA’s 100 Best Ever NZ Songs and has won numerous awards, including two APRA Silver Scrolls, for “Anchor Me” in 1994 and for “Bathe In The River” in 2006.
He has scored over a dozen feature films and five TV series, including Jane Campion’s An Angel At My Table, and most recently has been collaborating again with his old Front Lawn friend Harry Sinclair on Kiri & Lou, the hit NZ kids series featuring Flight Of The Conchords’ Jemaine Clement, that’s now seen around the world and translated into 10 languages.
Join McGlashan and Anita Clark as they traverse Aotearoa sharing these songs and other favourites from Don’s ever-developing career.
■ To book your tickets visit https://donmcglashan.com/
