Spartacus R at The ParamountThe debut sea­son of Downstage’s Sun­day music pro­gramme ‘Sound­stage’ has been a tear­away suc­cess. The for­mi­da­ble line-up of bands includ­ing The Wool­shed Ses­sions, Lit­tle Bush­man, Sam F Scott and The B.O.P and Rhi­an Shee­han have all thrived in the the­atri­cal envi­ron­ment play­ing to capac­i­ty audi­ences.

We’re now at the last Sound­stage gig for 2009 and Welling­ton six piece psy­che­del­ic psy­cho­nauts Spar­ta­cus R are the per­fect band to close out the sea­son. Their the­atri­cal cre­den­tials are impec­ca­ble hav­ing built a rep­u­ta­tion for unique and inno­v­a­tive per­for­mances at the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val. At the Fringe 07 they pre­sent­ed Spar­ta­cus R in Octo­phon­ic, and the fol­low­ing year at the Fringe 08 Spar­ta­cus R in 3D, com­bin­ing live music with 3D visu­als in the Para­mount.

Based on a foun­da­tion of blues, rock and funk, Spar­ta­cus will deliv­er a cap­ti­vat­ing and elec­tri­fy­ing per­for­mance that explores new musi­cal and visu­al ter­ri­to­ry. For Sound­stage on 15 Nov Spar­ta­cus R have craft­ed a com­plete­ly new show com­bin­ing 100% new musi­cal mate­r­i­al with pro­ject­ed visu­als, actors and even live poet­ry.

More about Spar­ta­cus R and Sound­stage after the jump.

War­ren Maxwell (Lit­tle Bush­man, Founder Trin­i­ty Roots) is a fan: “I am com­plete­ly musi­cal­ly ‘turned on’ by Spar­ta­cus R. Their music is well-craft­ed and intri­cate­ly sin­cere. Fresh, con­tem­po­rary retro, and com­plete­ly unpre­dictable… Beau­ti­ful.”

Sound­stage is an exper­i­ment in music pre­sen­ta­tion aimed at show­cas­ing Wellington’s best artists. Tai­lored for fans (and artists) that pre­fer not to do bat­tle with late nights and intox­i­cat­ed pun­ters, Sun­day evening Sound­stage gigs are the per­fect chance to sit back with some friends, a glass of wine and enjoy the show.

Audi­ences ben­e­fit from see­ing their favourite acts in an inti­mate, seat­ed venue, alle­vi­at­ing annoy­ing sight­line issues that you often get watch­ing bands in a bar.  Not to men­tion the added ben­e­fit of a respectable 7pm start time.