Classic rock comes to town
Rock Tenors will bring their new show to Queenstown next week, performing a celebration of some of the greatest rock hits. The high-energy full-scale theatrical rock experience will feature five strong voices backed by a hard-hitting rock band.
Founder, director and producer Doug Kamo is excited to bring the show to Queenstown – he’s produced and directed shows for Showbiz Queenstown and is looking forward to heading back our way. He explains the Rock Tenor show all started in 2022 as a result of Covid disruption. He was directing the Queen musical, We Will Rock You, in Dunedin when it unfortunately grounded to a halt. He approached the five lead men of the production with his idea for the Rock Tenors show.
“We chucked the show on sale and we sold three shows out before we even marketed it, and we went ‘Oh, there’s something in this’,” Kamo says. “We toured that season – touring the South Island, we’ve done multiple corporate functions and festivals up and down the country, and we’ve had another couple of big seasons here in Dunedin, so we’ve decided to go national and take it on tour.”
Expect to hear a myriad of rock anthems from artists such as Queen, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, U2, Radiohead and more. To squeeze the most into the show, they’ve included a range of mash ups and people are encouraged to sing along and get involved.
“The boys spend quite a bit of time in the audience, so it’s not just about them being on stage. They do get into the audience and they do really rock the crowd – it’s immersive and interactive in that sense.”
Now in its fifth year, the show has been seen by around 20,000 people and received a great response. Whether you’re a die-hard rocker or a first-time Tenors fan, the show promises to be an entertaining rock spectacle.
“There’s clearly an interest in that nostalgic rock music. We haven’t changed arrangements – everyone that comes along to it will know all of the songs because they are still the standard rock classics.”
Each of the singers come from a background in national or international musical theatre – from thrash metal to opera, their range is diverse. This scope means they have the ability to perform a wide range of songs.
“We take these really well-known rock classics and we’ve reorchestrated them so that the vocal arrangements for them are quite different and dynamic, then we’ve wrapped a pretty full on production around that in terms of sound, lighting and vision. So it’s a theatrical rock performance.”
The audience at the shows is diverse, ranging from 12 to 60. The set list is full of nostalgic classics that we’ve all listened to for the past 30+ years – not hardcore rock and thrash. Think Stairway to Heaven, Jump, Africa. They regularly ask the audience if there was a song in the show that they didn’t know and the response is always the same – they knew them all.
“It’s very accessible, it’s very much families, and it’s very much come in, sit down, then stand up and dance and sing and have a good time. We make it very immersive, it’s about the boys getting out into the audience and giving license to the audience to party and have a good time in a really safe environment that people know all the songs.”
Rock Tenors will play at Queenstown Memorial Centre on Thursday, 23 April at 7.30pm. Tickets and more information can be found at rocktenors.nz
