Chaos to end Lightspeed gig

Evan Short, left, and Matt Harvey of Concord Dawn

Evan Short's New Year resolutions are to eat less cheese, do more exercise and play more heavy metal.

But the diet will be strictly drum'n'bass when he DJs the 4am-6am slot at Lightspeed New Yeah tomorrow night, his first NYE in Auckland for five years. The others were spent DJ'ing in the South Island, including a memorable stint at Nelson's Phat festival this year, and a gig in Wellington. All of which can make the midnight pash somewhat hard to come by.

"I did manage one two years ago at Alpine Unity," he chuckles.

Plenty of time for that this year. The timeslot suggests it wouldn't be amiss to listen out for Morning Light, the biggest track off their last album, Uprising.

"Quite often we get chucked on the extremely late set because they're scared of us or worried about us scaring everyone off. Basically after we've played, no one else cares. They've got to keep us to right at the end otherwise they'll just go home."

He's kidding - if anything, he hopes the set will build up a bit of momentum for their new fourth album, Chaos by Design, with a release date of late March. Matt Harvey came up with the name while watching a doco on the military tactics of Attila the Hun.

"It definitely sums up the album because it's all over the place," says Short. "There's a slight fear at the back of our minds that we're going to alienate a whole lot of fans because we've done some pretty - I don't want to say fruity - but eclectic stuff. There's some quite hard stuff on there, harder than the last record. And there's some cafe material."

Wellington songstress Hollie Smith appears on one of the nastier tracks, Say Your Words, one of three picked up by Goldie's prestigious Metalheadz label. And if there are opportunities for Concord Dawn to capitalise on international coups like that, they're in the hands of Harvey, who has been living in Vienna for the past six weeks. Short, who stayed behind to keep the duo's profile up at home, says Harvey is booked for gigs, weekends on end.

"I miss him tonnes, eh. When we're businessmen together we often get on each others' wicks and we wind each other up quite badly. We know what buttons to push to annoy each other, and it's sometimes fun to do that. I thought I was going to be free of the burden that is Matt but the day after he was gone, it was like, Matthew? Hello? There was no one there in this huge house."


Performance

* Who: Concord Dawn
* Where and when: Lightspeed New Yeah, 4.20 and Rising Sun, K Rd, with Recloose, OpenSouls, Bevan Keys, Dick Johnson, 41, North Shore Pony Club