Gin and Train Please

Wow, Train sure has changed a lot over the last few years. We only need to look at their various singles over the years to see this. They bust into the scene with ‘Drops of Jupiter’ which in all honesty reminds me of Michael Buble. Then there was their best song in my opinion, ‘Ordinary’ which featured on Spiderman 2 and was a pretty cool song. But now, now there is ‘Hey Soul Sister’ at first I thought it was cool, at first I thought it wasn’t Train. But equipped with that knowledge and the damage of far too many radio raping’s it sounds repetitive and poppy, which is fine if you like Miley Cyrus.

As an unbiased and fair writer one would expect that I have listened to whole album and have given it a fair rating. But I haven’t, I can’t be arsed and in all honesty I don’t want to ruin my image of Train any more than it already is.

On a better note, I recently had the pleasure of attending a Gin concert in Takapuna and it was something else. Music aside Gin really comes across as a real kiwi chick with great band and audience interaction and sipping on wine in between songs. Her opening act, Kidz in Space, were a little disappointing though, their energetic style of music didn’t really fit with the more laid back tunes of Gin and the two lead ‘singers’ didn’t sing so much as shout at you, similar to that angry shout you get when you step on a cat, not pleasant.

Gin, however, was excellent. Enigmatic, conversational and above all a fantastic musician with a great voice and backup band, she performed the entire Holy Smoke album, in an order that I didn’t totally agree with, but performed it just like the album. As soon as she walked out and started her first song it was obvious that it was going to be a good show, and $45 the value was something else, perfect for students.

Lighting and show(wo)manship were there in spades and made for an enthralling concert, although some of the dance moves, both Gins and the audiences, were a little suspect. But those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Or something like that.

One of the major reasons for my attendance at this concert was the fact that Gin is a Devonport girl and I needed to prove to people that Devonport people really are the shit, no getting around it. So usually this would be a reason to celebrate, another great New Zealand musician, but she has already moved to Sydney, where she is now based. Just another casualty to our tiny music market, so again people it boils down to buying music. Genuine artists like Gin and plenty of others put ridiculous amounts of work into these albums, much more than the $25 that JB asks for, so support NZ music so we can have many more Gins and The Checks (both from Devonport) coming up through the Ranks.

Sam Owles