Sven Olsen's Brutal Canadian Love Saga

Pictured below, the lighting rig show at last night's Fringe Festival performance by Sven Olsen's Brutal Canadian Love Saga, a Wellington-based 19-piece orchestral pop collaborative singing bedsit epics of life and love in New Zealand, the land of the laid-back catastrophe and the mythical rockstar economy. Plus the odd ditty about Kron, the most famous tagger to ever adorn the walls and buildings of the fine conurbation of Hastings. The concert put me in mind of a local embodiment of the pop spirit of Tim DeLaughter's Texan hippie orchestra The Polyphonic Spree, which I enjoyed seeing in the big tent at the Big Day Out in Auckland in 2004 (or perhaps '05). 

The Svens play two more Fringe gigs in the beautiful St Peter's on Willis Street, tonight and tomorrow night. Entrance is by koha.