Trails to cross Cook Strait

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 18

Trails to cross Cook Strait

By NEVIN TOPP One of Christchurch’s 1 o n g-established rock groups, Vapour and the Trails, will soon crosr Cook Strait for their firs North Island tour. According to guitaris Alan Park the tour wil make or break the band. I; takes in Hamilton, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Gisborne, Napier, and Wellington, to name some of the centres the Trails will visit on their projected eight-week schedule.

Surprisingly, though, Auckland has been excluded from the itinerary, even though Alan Park once said that if a group made it in Auckland they also had it made in the rest of New Zealand.

Perhaps by denying themselves the . experience of the critical Auckland audiences the band will also deny themselves a chance of proving that they are good,_ for the little Big Anple 'seems to have an antipathy to any group south of Bombay Hill.

Alan Park said he thought the band would need to be in Auckland a couple of months to crack the city. At the same time he reacted enthusiastically to the chance that the Trails might get to play alongside fellow South Island band, Pop Mechanix, in

Auckland, and talked of the possibility of flying the Vauxhalls up for the occasion. The Newz are also supposed to be in Auckland then so it would seem to be the ideal time for Vapour and the Trails to raise a bit of steam in the main Auckland venues. Alan Park said that the oand was not going to Auckland because they needed time to polish their act. However, although Nelson and West Coast audi-

ences may not be as critical of rock groups as those in Auckland, the band’s reception in these areas proves that they can succeed outside Christchurch. The time seems a critical one for the Trails because Alan Park said that both Leigh Perry, the bass guitarist, and the drummer, Murray Olds, had indicated that they might leave if the tour was not a success. The group was really

looking forward to the North Island, but there was a bit of apprehension because either the Trails had the energy to continue or the band’s time was up. “All it means is that if the punters don’t get what they want, then neither do we,” Alan Park said. The band will play their last shows at the Gladstone Hotel this week before pushing off for the North Island with the addition of sound mixer, Fred Kramer.