Blindspott singer Damian Alexander and drummer Shelton Woolright are stoked to be headlining the Rock 2000 this year with a 30-piece orchestra - but they're not taking it lightly.
The boys came in to see the Morning Rumble today after we announced they'd be headlining at Spark Arena backed by the Philharmonic Orchestra, and Shelton revealed he's "actually quite nervous" about the massive gig.
"We don't actually really know how the hell we're gonna do it yet, so we're going to sit down with the orchestra," he said.
The legendary band is set to perform their debut, self-titled album in full with the Philharmonic - something Bryce pointed out will be a "New Zealand first".
Damian and Shelton both agreed they could have never expected they'd be doing it, but their songwriting process has always involved some kind of classical music.
"If you listen to the tracks closely, you can hear piano, violin, cello," Damian said.
"We do use those instruments a lot, but I never thought we'd be doing it on stage live with a 30-piece orchestra."
"I'm assuming there will be a conductor on stage and I'll just be spitting and swearing at the crowd," he added.
Even though there's a lot of work still to do on the performance, the band have already started imagining how their songs will sound with such epic accompaniment.
"A track like 'Mind Dependency', imagine opening that and just hearing the full orchestra start, it'll be goosebump city," Shelton said.
"We have to nail it because we've got these professional musicians behind us - they're going to be wicked to play with," he added. "For us it's a career highlight."
Blindspott had a stonking 14 songs appear in The Rock 2000 countdown last year, with their hit 'Nil By Mouth' reaching number two.
Damian and Shelton both wanted to thank the Rock listeners for the "massive achievement" of getting them to number two, saying that fans still listening to the record and turning up to shows allows them to keep making and performing music.
Shelton reckoned it was only when the band got back together after a hiatus that they truly understood the impact their 2002 album had.
"The response and the chats with people after the show… we were like 'wow, that album actually hit and did something for a lot of people'," he said.
"At the time, we had no idea, we were just running around doing real, real dumb shit."
Damian added: "We still get messages all the time from people about the tracks and what they mean."
"It's sort of sad that it's really only later on that you realise that stuff, but we're very grateful for it."
We are chomping at the bit to see what the Blindspott boys come up with on the night, but there's heaps more acts to be announced before then - so make sure you stay locked in to see what else is in store.
Early bird tickets go on sale on Friday April 11th at 9am and general sale kicks off on Monday April 14th - you won't want to bloody miss this one.
