Great North and The Bads going on tour/couples retreat

Great North are celebrating their second Tui award win by hitting the road with The Bads and Brendan and Alison Turner for a nationwide tour that kind of doubles as a couples retreat.

The band took out the Best Folk Album Tui for their 2014 record Up In Smoke in January, after winning the same award for Halves in 2013. They are following their latest win with a 12-date tour that criss-crosses the country from Whangarei to Dunedin. It includes their first ever shows in Queenstown, Nelson, Whanganui, Featherston and Whangarei.

They will be travelling with The Bads – a vehicle for the musical collisions and escapades of Brett Adams and Dianne Swann. Brendan and Alison Turner will open the shows with a set of foot stomps and harmony singing, honed over years on the road with Bond Street Bridge, The Bitter Years and many other acts.

Every group on tour is fronted by a couple. “We didn’t mean for this to happen. It just did,” Great North frontman Hayden Donnell says. “And when it’s right, it’s right.” The romantic pairings will be mingling on stage: Brendan Turner shows up on double bass for The Bads and Great North, while Brett Adams’ incomparable guitar and mandolin playing will feature in Great North’s sets. 

Only pedal steel player Matthew Hutching is not currently dating a member of the tour party.

 Tour dates:

April 10: St Peter’s Hall, Paekakariki
April 11: Meow, Wellington
April 12: The Tin Hut, Featherston
April 16: Playhouse Cafe, Nelson
April 17: Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch
April 18: The Sherwood, Queenstown
April 19: New Edinburgh Folk Club, Dunedin
April 23: Golden Dawn Tavern of Power, Auckland
April 24: Walton Street, Te Awamutu
April 25: Space Monster, Whanganui
May 1: The Old Stone Butter Factory, Whangarei
May 2: Leigh Sawmill Cafe, Leigh

Tickets from Under The Radar.