Nelson City Council

Can a legend die? Or worse, slowly fade away into irrelevance?

The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill is a surreal musical postcard from the inner landscape of the Old West. It mourns the obsolescence of heroes, showing them transfixed as relics in the mythic junkyard of American popular culture.

Another kind of love story, this Cowboy Opera conjures Pecos Bill, the cowboy comic-book icon, legendary for creating Texas, wrangling tornadoes and digging the Rio Grande, and his ‘mighty stimulatin’ catfish-riding bride, Slue-Foot Sue, who Pecos is forced to shoot from the sky on the night of their wedding. The opera takes place in a limbo where the heroes and their legend are vanishing from the memory of mankind.

Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sam Shepard with music by Catherine Stone, this new production of Pecos Bill has evocative new musical arrangements and improvisations. It’s an off-centre fusion of a honky-tonk fever dream and wistful western ballad ending up in unexpected new places. Wagon wheels and bones for percussion instruments, Flamenco and psychedelic guitar sounds, and the moan and wheeze of a saw all combine to make an out of the ordinary Western.

‘Beautifully evoked a culture of grief and living with death, with skilled musicianship and an enveloping magic-realist set of bonfire and hay bales.’ NZ Herald

Hear local band Fez at the Granary Festival Cafe from 5pm, no charge.

CREDITS

Cameron Douglas - Pecos Bill

Colleen Davis - Slue-Foot Sue

 Phil Dryson - guitar, saw

Chris O’Connor - percussion

Tom Rodwell - guitar

Robin Kydd - installation art

Tim Bell - lighting design

By Sam Shepard and Catherine Stone

Music arranged by Colleen Davis and Tom Rodwell

Venue

The Festival Tent

DATE

Sat 15 Oct 7.30pm

DURATION

60 minutes, no interval

COST

early bird A res $34, B res $30

full A res $38, B res $34

Bookings

Everyman Records 03 548 3083 or book online here

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