The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra will mark its return to the Town Hall by reuniting with Shapeshifter, who they performed with in 2007. Cityscape asks keyboardist and guitarist Sam Trevethick what the audience can look forward to.

Shapeshifter back in the Town Hall with the CSO after 11 years – how exciting is that? It’s very exciting to be reopening my favourite venue. I'm so happy it was able to be saved from destruction. The night we played with the CSO was incredible so it’s great to be able to repeat it.

What will the playlist look like – a mix of old and new? Pretty much a song or two from every album we've made, plus one or two we haven't yet.

For the Christchurch band members in particular it must be great to be part of the return to the Town Hall? It’s my favourite venue in the world, and also in my home town. It’s where I saw The Muppet Show, Tool, Korn, Portishead, Smashing Pumpkins, and my mother, Rosemary Turnbull, as vocal soloist in Last Night of The Proms.

Any special guests lined up? We have a few things up our sleeve, yes.

No doubt Tiki Taane will be working the sound desk for you again? Tiki has done every show we've ever played bar a small handful, and we're grateful he'll be on the boards again.

The band must be pretty busy these days with your growing international popularity. What does a year look like for you now – Australia and New Zealand in the summer followed by Europe in their summer? Pretty much nailed it there. We also hit Canada and Japan around September/October.

It’s two years now since your last album, Stars, dropped – when can we expect another one? We are working on a new release yes, untitled so far but it’s got plenty of differing flavours, which is standard play for us. Expect our new single, ‘Break Me Down’, early in 2019.

Of the by now hundreds of gigs you have played, what would be the craziest? Probably the time Paora (Apera, aka P Digsss) got laryngitis the day of a festival in Exeter, in the UK, and we decided to play the show anyway with Tiki performing on stage as our singer. Guy, our foldback engineer, took over mixing front of house and we played our entire set. Tiki nailed it. That was “the show must go on” at its finest.

Shapeshifter & the CSO
Christchurch Town Hall, March 1 2019
cso.co.nz