Nook and Cranny act ‘so different’

Dane Oates performs in a lift at the Dunedin City Library as part of the Nook and Cranny Music Festival yesterday. PHOTOS: GREGOR RICHARDSON

Lift music traditionally has a soothing quality as people are taken up and down in an uncomfortably enclosed space.

Saurian guitarist and vocalist Karl Brinsdon performs in a tent outside the library.

But yesterday, one of the Dunedin City Library’s lifts had live music in the form of Dane Oates and his guitar, which actually had some people dancing in the box.

Passenger Tom Bullock loved it.

"It was fantastic. It was so different.

"It’s a much quicker lift ride when you’ve got something a bit faster playing in the corner.

"They should put it in all big buildings. It would be a great pitch for New York."

Oates was among dozens of Dunedin soloists, duos, bands, choirs and orchestras which performed between bookshelves, in the lifts and stairwells, on tables and other sound stages unique to the library setting, as part of the Nook and Cranny Music Festival.

There was something to suit almost every musical taste among the books, and it drew large crowds to the library.