Many instruments but just one muso in loop

Trailblazing loop pedal muso Adam Page is bringing a wagonload of instruments to his debut Wairarapa gig at King Street Live tonight.

Page, who gained a jazz degree with honours at the Adelaide Conservatorium of Music, is "stoked" to be playing the newly opened venue co-owned by fellow jazzman Warren Maxwell, and said his grounding in jazz allowed him to freewheel through the wider musical spectrum during his interactive live shows.

Page's live show runs through a gamut of genres - jazz to Punjabi to tango - and incorporates looping vocals, beatboxing and instruments as varied as saxophone, guitar, percussion, harmony flute, didgeridoo and keyboards.

Page said he had staged his "futuristic one-man band" shows to audiences around the globe, including performances throughout New Zealand, his homeland of Australia, and festivals in Europe and Britain.

He is a multi-instrumentalist who would "need four hands" to count the number he can play and will be filling his car with up to 15 instruments to use in the Masterton show. "I will be bringing a couple of keyboards, synth, beautiful native American flutes, sax, guitar, bass and my voice. I'm going to fill my car."

Central to his performance will be a looping pedal, with which he "can create a symphony of myself within a couple of seconds".

"Looping pedals have only been around for 10 to 15 years but they are really starting to become a common way for musicians performing today and I'm sort of lucky I started establishing myself before the boom," he said.

"I think I got my first looping pedal in 1999 and I guess I'm one of the few who started off using it wholly and solely as my performance tool. I feel like I've carved out my niche, I guess."