Fat Freddy's Drop Live in Auckland

Yeah, that's right, the near mythical Fat Freddy's Drop were here at The Powerstation, Auckland, on 13 September 2013! I had been listening to Blackbird" quite a bit when it first came out - and it's a different sound to their earlier albums - so was intrigued to see what the set list would be for this show!

Amanda Palmer Live Totally Rocks!

Yes, if you didn't know already Amanda Palmer totally rocks! Supported by the Grand Theft Orchestra (from her latest album "Theatre Is Evil") and some interesting support acts the classic "King's Arms" style show, with a truly eclectic crowd of fans, on Friday 6 September 2013 was totally awesome (to put it in one word)!

Support acts were The Murder Chord (we only arrived as they were finishing so only heard the last track unfortunately), followed by an awesome solo performance by Jherek Bischoff (the bassist from Grand Theft Orchestra).

Steve Vai live in Auckland

What a show (Saturday 20 July 2013) - my ears didn't come right until Monday morning! The Steve Vai show at Auckland's ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, The Edge was full on and loud! But if you love guitar - as I do - it was totally awesome! What a show!

Beth Orton Live

Went to see Beth Orton live at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, here in Auckland. Good concert, and great venue, although somewhat more understated than I expected and not what I'd class a great performance - while she is obviously a folk singer her performance seemed a little more subdued than how I find her albums (and obviously being live the expectation was for perhaps a tad more energy so I was a little underwhelmed). I am undecided on the set list (although there was definitely not enough of her earlier stuff in my opinion), although it was worth attending if only to have seen her live.

Danny Bhoy!

Went to see Danny Bhoy's "Dear Epsom" live show at the Civic Theatre, The Edge, here in Auckland on 3 May 2013. Great show - he was brilliantly funny as always! Fantastic! Thumbs Up Danny!

See feed back at Ticketmaster NZ.

Fantastic Rickie Lee Jones

A friend and I went to see An Evening With Rickie Lee Jones here in Auckland on Friday night. And what a great evening it was - this turned out to be a fantastic performance and atmosphere, and well worth the effort. Rickie's set list contained a fair number of pieces off her 1995 Acoustic Album "Naked Songs" plus a couple of tracks from her new covers album "The Devil You Know" and a scattered assortment of other songs (one or two of which I don't think she has published on an album). After some initial teething issues with her guitar (which required a re-jig of the set sequence and some piano numbers first) she was quickly into it and straight away extending that amazing vocal range that she has.

Who Shot Rock & Roll?

Last weekend I went to see "Who Shot Rock And Roll" (A Photographic History, 1955 - Present) at the Auckland Art Gallery for the second time (having been to see it originally in early December, shortly after it opened here in New Zealand). This is a great exhibition organised by the Brooklyn Museum (and guest curator Gail Buckland) and features "173 photographs of rock, pop and hip hop, captured by the men and women who gave the music its image". The photographers covered include Diane Arbus, Roberta Bayley, Henry Diltz, Godlis, Dennis Hopper, David LaChappelle, Annie Leibovitz, Linda McCartney and Albert Watson.

More On Music Server Cables & Shielding

Continuing on from my last post, in August-September I had assembled a second Vortexbox Server, and I then went through and shielded all the cabling in the new server, and all the data cabling in my existing server (I haven't done the power cabling yet as I am contemplating a Linear Power Supply for my server - and if I do so will need to modify the power cables before shielding). I've posted a few images here to give anyone else wanting to have a crack an idea of how to do it just using some basic equipment...

Music Server Gapless Playback, Shielding & LPSU

Continuing A Dedicated Music Server Journey (Part 6)

My next items to address with the server are getting around to shielding the internal cables, and preparing for adding in a linear power supply to replace the existing one. However first, following on from my previous post, Vortexbox have now upgraded the install package to include an option to auto-install Squeezeplay (and disable Vortexplayer) via Yum – which is fantastic. Vortexplayer is reportedly gapless now also, however I believe that is determined more by the hardware implementation of the DAC manufacturer, and so may not be truly gapless 100% of the time. Regarding Vortexplayer being gapless, in the case of the Bel Canto series devices for example, they are very forgiving and have a longish delay when the signal drops before they react and need to relock the sample rate, etc.

Focal SM9's Get 10 out of 10

Continuing on from my The Focal SM9 Joy Continues... post:

"The SM9 and its innovative two-in-one approach tops Focal’s range of active studio monitors."

"The imaging is surgically precise, the effortless transparency is world-class and they’re a pleasure to work with."

"Full-frequency near-field monitors with a unique feature set and extraordinary sound quality."

Update: Unfortunately I have had to remove the link to the full review at Music Tech Magazine UK (quoted above) as it appears to have been taken over by scammers.

However you can read a subsequent full review at What Hi-Fi UK.