Dimmer live at The Powerstation, Auckland, 2018. Left to right: James Duncan, Gary Sullivan, Shayne Carter, Vaughn Williams.
Considering Shayne Carter’s desire to move forward, the return of the Shayne Carter-Gary Sullivan-Vaughn Williams-James Duncan incarnation of Dimmer in 2018 was somewhat of a surprise. Their gig at The Kings Arms in February was one of the last shows at the venue, and included a set with “special guests” John Collie and Mark Petersen from Straitjacket Fits (with Duncan and Williams filling in on bass). The show’s success led to a short tour of New Zealand in November-December 2018 before shows in Australia in September 2019, this time with Straitjacket Fits playing under its own name.
Dimmer - I Believe You Are a Star (Columbia, 2001)
The tour coincided with a vinyl reissue of the Dimmer classic I Believe You are a Star, which was subsequently voted No.6 on RNZ’s Top 21 Albums of the 21st Century in 2019. As the album had been unavailable for a long time due to Sony not releasing it overseas, the reissue was very welcome. As for the poll rating, Carter doesn’t consider vindicated the right word. “Where it stood in the pantheon, I don’t know … you take the grain of salt … in any kind of poll, there’s going to be something you disagree with. But, I did agree with its reasonably high rating,” he says.
Following the shows, Dimmer slid out of view again. Carter was working on intriguing projects such as creating soundscapes (as the Muse) for the intense, unfurling stage play of An Iliad with Michael Hurst (as the Poet), and releasing his autobiography Dead People I Have Known. However, 2021 was the year I Believe You are a Star turned 20, and another tour was planned to celebrate the anniversary (with a further LP reissue on coloured vinyl). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the tour was postponed over a year until later in 2022, with shows again in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. “I really loved doing that tour … even though it took about two years to actually do it because it was cancelled over and over.” All shows were supported by Proteins of Magic (Kelly Sherrod), herself a former bassist in Dimmer.
Dimmer performing 'Crystalator', 24 September 2022, Regent Theatre, Ōtepoti Dunedin, filmed by Roslyn Nijenhuis. The lineup included James Duncan (guitar), Gary Sullivan, Die! Die! Die! bassist Lachlan Anderson, Louisa Nicklin (guitar /vocals) Neive Strang (vocals/percussion), Dimmer recording engineer/co-producer Nick Roughan (Skeptics, David Kilgour) was on keyboards and live electronics. For this song they were joined by Proteins of Magic aka Kelly Sherrod on bass.
These shows were spectacular, especially at the Regent Theatre in Dunedin, with the band performing in front of striking visuals of beautiful, often stark, colour and design. The visuals were designed by Assembly, who count Gary Sullivan as an employee. “They basically did that incredible show for free as they were mates … it was mega in the Regent, incredible. I wish I could do that every day.”
This time around, the band had expanded. Carter, Sullivan and Duncan (shifting from guitar to bass) were joined by Durham Fenwick on keys and electronics, Louisa Nicklin on guitar and vocals, and Neive Strang on percussion and backing vocals. Die Die Die’s Lachlan Anderson and Skeptics’ Nick Roughan (who engineered and co-produced the first three Dimmer albums) were tapped for the 2021 tour, but could not join the 2022 lineup.
Carter loved the big band version of Dimmer, and thought the line-up captured the finer details and nuances of I Believe You are a Star. “With that size band … the preparation we put on that show, I really wanted to play that record, like I say, with all the detail and all the touches. So every line on that record was represented live … a mammoth effort to put together.”
Dimmer at San Fran, Wellington, 9 September 2022, with Louisa Nicklin on guitar and James Duncan on bass. - Photo by Stella Gardiner
One of the key (and challenging) aspects of playing the album as a whole was working out how to perform the improvised pieces, ‘Sad Guy’ and ‘Drift’, which they decided to play as closely as possible to the original recording. It was, Carter says, on his mind a lot. “It’s like … three of those, half of that, one of those, then seven of those … I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about ‘Sad Guy’ for about a year!” Sullivan sent him notes which were “similar to maybe the log notes of a NASA trip to the moon or something,” he says, laughing. “Very detailed and very technical and meant nothing to the average lay person. It was just a great sign of insanity … just a screeds of numbers and stuff!”
Shayne Carter fronting Dimmer at San Fran, Wellington, 9 September 2022. - Photo by Stella Gardiner
Dimmer material had another outing when Carter followed up the 2022 shows with the Bright Sparks shows with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Dunedin and Christchurch. Bright Sparks emerged from discussions between him and NZSO’s Claire Wackrow about curating a set of a dozen of his favourite classical pieces, and then performing material from his back catalogue with the orchestra. “I kind of thought it would be great for people who didn’t really know a lot about classical music who came from the same sort of background as me … I’ve explored that music for a few years now so, you know, there’s gold everywhere. I love that show, and it was like a dream where I got to DJ the national orchestra to play all my favourite pieces … I loved the arrangements, and singing with an orchestra is a dream.” Highlights included orchestrated versions of Dimmer’s ‘Drop You Off’, and ‘Crystalator’, where Carter’s guitar battled for supremacy with the orchestra. It’s no surprise to say who won.
Louisa Nicklin, Gary Sullivan, and James Duncan performing with Dimmer at San Fran, Wellington, 2022. - Photo by Stella Gardiner
In late 2023, Dimmer returned for a victory lap of shows with the same big-band line-up, and Carter noted in the press release that the band and the music sounded too good to not continue. “The number of people on stage and the skills and sensibilities they brought to the band meant we could do justice to a lot of material … it was a new band with a fresh set ... I also found this group inspiring with future material in mind.”
Dimmer performing in the Port Chalmers Town Hall, 15 December 2023. Left to right: Louisa Nicklin, Neive Strang, Shayne Carter, Durham Fenwick, Gary Sullivan, James Duncan. - Photo by Ethan Montañer
The shows included two new songs, ‘Backwards Plot’, and ‘Left to Defend’, and Carter talked during the shows about recording them in the future. The idea still crosses his mind when he thinks about recording new songs. “I actually have no idea how I’m going to record them. It’d be great to record them with the big band. At the same time it’d be great to record them really stripped back as well. I didn’t even know if I wanted to do another album, but I do.” The live performances included sonic twists, pauses and moments of transcendence. Reviewing for 13th Floor, Andra Jenkin recommended the audience accompany the band on the journey as “you never know what turn Dimmer will take.”
Dimmer - Live At The Hollywood (2023). Released on Shayne Carter's label, Crystalator Records.
The 2023 shows were in support of the Live at the Hollywood album, recorded by RNZ’s Andre Upston over three sold-out nights at the Hollywood Avondale in 2022. Live-mixed and mastered by Tex Houston, the album was released on Carter’s new record label Crystalator Records, and reached the top 30 in the album charts. The cover art and coloured vinyl discs reflected the striking visuals playing behind the band during the 2022 tour. On reviewing the album for RNZ’s New Horizons, William Dart noted how the songs were expanded, with “radical rethinkings” to songs such as ‘What’s a Few Tears to the Ocean’ while the vein of funk running through the material was “lusher and subtler and [growing] from the performance.”
Carter considers the album “damn good ... I love it … woefully underrated,” but laughs when adding, “I don’t think people know about it, or maybe they do and hate Dimmer and don’t want to buy it! I thought it was an awesome recording … some of the versions of the songs were far superior to the recorded versions … It was great to get that document.”
Shayne P. Carter with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - REforms (2025)
In another twist back to the NZSO, Carter has released a new album, REforms, where ‘Crystalator’ and ‘Drop You Off’ are among the tracks re-worked, re-arranged, and re-recorded with the orchestra. REforms, he thinks, stands in its own space. “I love the record … I can’t think of anything that sounds like it … It’s not rock and it’s not classical and it’s not some lame crossover record where nobody’s doing anything because they’re all scared of stepping on each other’s toes. Not that I’m saying there’s records like that that exist!”
Writing for The Post in November 2025, Henry Oliver says of the new orchestral recording of ‘Crystalator’, “the string section becomes a brutally distorted guitar, the winds become feedback, acoustics and electronics colliding, breaking each other down in the impact.” In the same article, Carter calls the song “impolite” in the way it sits with the NZSO, and you can sense exactly where he is coming from.
Footage of Dimmer, and Carter recording and performing with the NZSO were included in the 2025 documentary Shayne Carter: Life in One Chord (dir. Margaret Gordon), which was filmed over a number of years.
“Margaret’s super cool, I trusted her with that project, and I think she already came through… [the] movie… wasn’t sycophantic or untrue,” he says. “I was essentially feeling quite over being perceived by the public. Which was kind of weird because I guess I’ve been doing that since I was a kid. But then when the movie came out, there’s been such a wonderful response and I’m really into it!”
In support of the film (now available on streaming services), Carter performed shows in the South Island, Wellington, and Auckland, diving into his back catalogue and playing new tracks alongside Dimmer, Straitjacket Fits, Adults and solo material.
The end is never truly the end, and legacies wax and wane. Does Carter think there has been a shift in perception of Dimmer, or of the band’s legacy? “Look, that’s not for me to comment. That’s just other people’s perceptions … it’s like people’s feelings about anything … but you know the bottom line is that you know when you’ve rocked and you know when you haven’t rocked … I haven’t not rocked very often!”
“I haven’t not rocked very often!” - Shayne Carter performing in Dimmer, Port Chalmers Town Hall, 15 December 2023. - Photo by Ethan Montañer
--
--