Lines of Flight - A Personal History

By
Peter Porteous
Tags group
Writing
The two Peters, Standing very happily beside each other. The mood is one of gentle friendship and content joy

The Lines of Flight music festival has become an institution in the Aotearoa/ New Zealand experimental music community. Based in Ōtepoti / Dunedin, it has happened every two years (or so) since 2000 and has been fundamental in nurturing and connecting a nation-wide community of adventurous, open-minded music-makers. The following is a personal history of the festival.

This is a tribute to Peter Stapleton, the driving force behind Lines of Flight, who sadly died of cancer in March 2020. He has left a huge hole in the Dunedin and Aotearoa music community, but continues to be an inspiration to so many musicians and fans.

Lines of Flight poster for 2000. A highly blurred indecipherable shape in grey with red text on top.

2000

- Flies Inside the Sun - Crude - Sandoz Lab Technicians - Empirical - Sleep - CM Ensemble - Birchville Cat Motel - A Handful of Dust -
Lines of Flight poster for 2002. Six black and white photos of rural roads. Text of the artists names.

2002

- K-Group - Flies Inside the Sun - Omit - Sandoz Lab Technicians - Peter Wright - Eso Steel - Donald McPherson - Empirical - Nova Scotia - Bruce Russell / Marco Fusinato - CM Ensemble - Greg Malcolm - Sleep - Birchville Cat Motel - Lovely Midget -
Lines of Flight poster for 2004. A two bulb chandelier casts a yellow glow on a ceiling.

2004

- Anti-Clockwise - Antony Milton - 3 Forks - Eye - Alastair Galbraith and Maxine Funke - Greg Malcolm and Chris O’Connor - Gate - A Handful of Dust - 1/3 Octave Band - Nether Dawn - Eso Steel - Pieters / Russell / Stapleton - Rosy Parlane - Rory Storm and the Invaders - Torlesse Supergroup - Birchville Cat Motel - Sandoz Lab Technicians - Omit -
Lines of Flight poster for 2006. A band plays under a green light. The text has a computer style font.

2006

- Rory Storm and the Invaders - Crude - Dave Black - The Stumps - Sam Hamilton - Gate - Greg Malcolm - Birchville Cat Motel - isyd - Lovely Midget - Eye - Ray Off - Alastair Galbraith/Maxine Funke/Dino Karlis - Richard Francis - A Handful of Dust - Omit - Adam Willetts - Audible 3 -
Lines of Flight poster for 2009. A photo of a burning piano. It is engulfed in flames and the shape of the piano is only just seen as dark bones hiding in the firece orange.

2009

- Tillakaratne - Mela - Tim Coster - White Saucer - Peter Wright - Crude - Xe - Eye - Rotor Plus - Sandoz Lab Technicians - Adam Willetts - Pete Gorman - Stanier Black-Five - Dead C -
Lines of Flight poster for 2011. A misty blue photo. Is that the spire of the Port Chalmers church in the haze?

2011

- Seht - Lee Noyes and Radio Cegeste - Sign of the Hag - Eye - Mela - Our Love Will Destroy the World - Kusum Normoyle - Dead C - The Forgotten Guests - Alastair Galbraith - Hi-Asobi - Stanier Black-Five - Pumice - Rosy Parlane - Futurians -
Lines of Flight poster for 2012. A white poster with black text. There is no image. The text gives a brief history of the fetsival, and invites people to celebrate the publishing of 'Erehwon Calling'.

2012

- Stanier Black-Five - Adam Willetts - Hermione Johnson - Eye - Bruce Russell and Peter Wright - Rachel Shearer - Omit - The Stumps -
Lines of Flight poster for 2013. A heavily pixelated photo of an amp and mic with a scene projected. The scene is of a snowy landscape with dark trees.

2013

- Stephen Kilroy - The Ladder is Part of the Pit - Greg Malcolm - Jeff Henderson / Hermione Johnson - Sam Hamilton - Bruce Russell / Peter Wright - Omit - The All Seeing Hand - Magnetic Field Data - Memory Burn - Alastair Galbraith - Eye - Black Yoghurt - Foxtrot - Gate - Murderbike - Futurians -
Lines of Flight poster for 2015. A photo of a performance. There are drums off to one side, and two people are on there knees perhoas creating feedback.

2015

- Radio Cegeste - Stanier Black-Five - The Aletheia Ensemble - Jeff Henderson / Hermione Johnson - Noel Meek - The Ladder is Part of the Pit - Sonny Carver - Eye - Peter Kolovos - Omit - Birdation - Teen Haters - Sandoz Lab Technicians - A Handful of Dust - Nick Graham - Rubbish Film Unit - Two To Tutu Too - Alphabethead - Olympus - Our Love Will Destroy the World -
Lines of Flight poster 2017. A dark hunched figure in front of a triangle of cascading red.

2017

- Hermione Johnson - Sewage - Jonny Marks - Jèrôme Noetinger - Smith - Eye - Motoko Kikkawa / Joanna Osborne - Bruce Russell - BYG (Alastair Galbraith / Robbie Yeats / Mick Elborado / Reg Norris) - LSD Fundraiser - Teen Haters - Drorgan - Fuck Chairs - Blankets - Rachel Shearer - Negative Nancies - Orchestra of Spheres - Jeff Henderson -
Lines of Flight poster for 2019. A yellow orange poster. The design is all made from black text and punctuation marks to create and almost mandala effect.

2019

- Longmore & Meung - Smith - UMU - Is There A Hotline? - Gate - Kiseki Usagi - Waterfalls - A Handful of Dust - Torrential Brain - Sewage (with Jeff Henderson) - Radio Cegeste - Motte - Gorge - Roy Montgomery - Space Wolf 2 - Oghum - Eye - Negative Nancies - Carter / Morley / Yeats - K-Group -
Peter Stapleton playing the drums

Outro

Acknowledgements
the two Peters standing in friendship
Peter Porteus and Peter Stapleton
Peter Porteous
A very dark black and white photo of Peter. It looks like he may be playing a guitar on a table top.

Peter is a Dunedin-based musician and event organiser. He ran the biennial Lines of Flight experimental music festival with Peter Stapleton for many years, and has helped tour many international acts. He has played guitar in past bands including Lapdog, Pointsman, Empirical and Eye, and currently plays in Ghost Bells and A Dream is like a Magic Cloak.

Artist link:
https://eyenz.bandcamp.com