Manic Opera and Frantic Gypsy Music

We have been to some good and entertaining show since we have been here in New Zealand. One of which we saw was called Cakesuckers by a group known as Manic Opera. The group consists of three middle-aged women singing barbershop style with they zany flare of Weird Al Yankavich but the sultry stage presents of a lounge singer. Their song lyrics are what got everyone howling, with song titles like “Grandfather’s cock”. And of course at the end of the night we had to get one of their CDs.

The next venue we went to was a said to be one of the oldest churches in New Zealand, Pukehou. The community that lived around this church worked together to restore the church making money by bringing in various music groups for concerts in the church. Vardos, was the name of the group we saw there. This groups performance was a bit frantic but defiantly up beat and yet again was made up of three women but a much younger and mainly instrumental. This group was influenced by Romanian and Hungarian gypsy music. The fiddle player moved aggressively around the stage confronting her band members—accordion player and stand-up bass—through out the songs. I often time had to look somewhere else because her movements were so distracting getting in the way of the music. Between songs the fiddle player gave a short story about the song they would be playing, speaking with a Romanian accent (keep in mind these girls are from Australia). When I was watching the girls play, I could not help but look at their teeth that were gray in color, twisted and jagged (maybe they were also all part of the show). The music was pretty good but I suppose the whole performance has to really captivate you. But we did get to spend our evening with some friends in one of the oldest churches in New Zealand on some of the hardest pews; luckily they handed out cushions, served us warm spiced red wine and assorted biscuits.