Gig Review: The National @ TSB Arena, Wellington, 25 February 2024

I’m a longtime fan of The National, collecting virtually everything the band has released over the past couple of decades. More or less, give or take. So naturally, having missed all of the band’s previous outings in Aotearoa, I picked up tickets for their first ever Wellington show as early as last September. It felt like a long wait.

When The Beths were later added to the bill as the Wellington support - Fazerdaze getting the prior night’s Auckland slot - it was merely a bonus. But it also ensured I was at the venue suitably early to catch the much-loved local power-poppers’ set. By my own unscientific estimation, in terms of gigs, I’ve probably seen more of The Beths than I have of any other live act across the past decade or so.

Once again they didn’t disappoint, pumping out as polished a half hour set - around ten songs - as I can recall from them, with a mix of old and newer tracks offering the perfect taster for any Beths-newbies. My own pick of the bunch being ‘Whatever’, the oldest track of all, an ageless banger that seems to sound better each time I hear it. Perfect pop from a band continually striving to achieve exactly that.

 I’d heard really great things about The National’s live shows. Some reports even suggesting that the band’s compelling live performances far and away exceed any notional high bar created by its recorded output. That’s a fairly big call, and it’s one that was perhaps the main catalyst for my own *relative* level of disappointment upon exiting the near full venue late on Sunday night.

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what disappointed me. And I’m not even sure disappointment is the right word. More nonchalance, or indifference on my part.

It wasn’t as though the band was lacking any professionalism or inspiration. It wasn’t a lack of effort on their part. The set-list was decent - stacked with older classics blended with more recent stuff. They played for more than two hours, and with frontman Matt Berninger to the fore as the focal point, The National has an energetic and beguiling stage presence rivalled by very few bands on the stadium circuit.

Indeed, there’s been worse concerts at that venue that I’ve enjoyed far more, for whatever reason that was. The one I can’t put my finger on.

Those “older classics” included the likes of ‘Squalor Victoria’, ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, ‘Conversation 16’, and the slow burning, now 20-year-old, ‘Cherry Tree’. All of them immaculately presented with enough live grit in there to make each one a captivating enough experience. But there was also a little splash of mud in the vocal mix, a lack of clarity even, and while Berninger’s baritone croon works brilliantly on record, I felt his live, clipped, almost shouty/spoken vocal delivery, was found a little wanting at times.

That angsty line in ‘Conversation 16’ where he sings “I was afraid, I’d eat your brains … cos I’m evil” loses some of its horror impact when you remove a more ambiguous croon from its wider punch, and replace it with a short sharp shouty jab.

The “newer stuff” included the recent break-up anthem ‘Eucalyptus’, which went down well as an early treat, ‘Tropic Morning News’, and much later, ‘Alien’. Again, all great, but the band’s focus seemed to be more around its 2010 to 2020 work, with obligatory lip service paid to the two most recent 2023 album releases.

That meant ‘Demons’, ‘Don’t Swallow The Cap’, a superb ‘I Need My Girl’, ‘Day I Die’, ‘Rylan’, ‘Graceless’ et al. Plus others.

At one point, mid-song, Berninger left the stage and made his way to near the bar at the back of the venue - without buying a round! - continuing to “sing”, his stage tech forced to work a minor miracle to keep man and microphone connected. All it would take is some clown in the crowd to do his absolute worst … a thought I quickly and admirably managed to suppress as Berninger passed within an arm’s reach of me.

A five-song encore meant Wellington was treated to a set-list of more than a couple of dozen carefully selected tracks, the band doing more than enough to make up for lost time in the capital, and there’s no doubt they offered good value for money.

The crowd itself was an interesting mix. From the young and the single, to middle-aged couples and everything in-between. An outing for those of a mainstream persuasion perhaps, while it also remains clear - on account of thoughtful clever lyricism mostly - that The National can still court fringes of the indie scene its music has always remained on the very periphery of.

It’s a fine line. Nobody wants to be thought of as an American version of Coldplay, do they?

I’m pleased I went along. Sunday night and all. To scratch that itch.

Are The National a better live proposition than they are as a studio outfit?

That’s a hard “no” from me. Not from this experience anyway. They’re good, possibly great, but that discography is a little bit special.

They’re certainly much more energetic on stage, no question, but for clarity of sound, for sense of purpose and direction in the production, for Berninger’s lush vocal delivery, I’m more than happy to content myself with the band’s studio work. And just quietly, I probably won’t rush out to buy tickets if they visit here again. 

No pics with this one. I took some, but none of them were particularly great when viewed in the cold light of the following day, so I’ll spare you that.  

Gig Review: Nabihah Iqbal @ Meow, Wellington, 16 January 2024

Tuesday nights at Meow are always a bit of a mystery. Never more so than when that Tuesday night falls slap bang in the middle of the summer holiday season. So with a good portion of the capital’s gig-going population either out of town, or just as likely suffering from some sort 0f post-Festive (or post-Festival-of-choice, even) hangover, it was a pleasant surprise to see a fairly decent turnout for Nabihah Iqbal’s Aotearoa-debut outing last week.

I estimate the crowd was something close to a couple of hundred, which made the venue lively enough, at about half-capacity. We were “warmed up” - stifling heat aside - by Wellington duo, Japes, who may ordinarily be less a duo and more the solo project of one Mia Kelly. It was all very low key, with Kelly and friend (Lochie Noble?) serving up morsels of intimate dream-pop moments for about 20 fairly compelling minutes.

What was less a pleasant surprise, and more of a disappointment, for me anyway, was the fact that Iqbal arrived on stage without a band. Just her and a guitarist-come-saxophonist. She later apologised for that scenario, saying she couldn’t afford the expense that comes with a full-band tour. Which is probably fair enough considering the pre-tour logistical uncertainties she faced as a mostly under-the-radar artist in this part of the world.

 But it meant that the layers of shoegaze brilliance found on last year’s Dreamer album were a little compromised by the use of background tracking, making it less rock n roll and more lightweight karaoke. That’s not to say that those tracks didn’t work well enough, because they did, it’s just the sense that they could all have been a hell of a lot more.

The Dreamer album, which provided Iqbal with something of a global breakthrough in 2023, was her main point of reference throughout the one-hour-plus set, with versions of the title track, ‘Sunflower’, ‘Gentle Heart’, ‘Lilac Twilight’, ‘Closer Lover’, and naturally, the wonderful ‘This World Couldn’t See Us’, all taking pride of place.

We also got ‘Zone 1 to 6000’ from her 2017 release Weighing Of The Heart, and a pretty great cover of The Cure’s masterpiece ‘A Forest’ as the penultimate song before a one-song encore.

Iqbal was very chatty, offering what felt like stream-of-consciousness musings about her life and the state of the world between songs. A fully qualified barrister, a literary nerd, and an unrepentant social activist, the London-based Iqbal seems like a very sincere and humble sort of individual, and at various points she expressed genuine surprise to be on stage performing such personal songs to a group of complete strangers, some 12,000 miles from home.

Such warmth and the sense that everything was mostly unrehearsed - and executed as well as it could be - wasn’t quite enough for me to get over my initial disappointment about there not being a full band, but it did help, and as I left the venue I reminded myself that it doesn’t always have to be about big production and rock n roll to be a good night out. And sometimes, relatively low key Tuesday nights at Meow have their place.

photo: nothingelseon

Casting aside my own live-performance “issues” expressed above, here’s the official clip for Iqbal’s excellent ‘This World Couldn’t See Us’ from last year …

Gig Review: Kraftwerk @ TSB Arena, Wellington, 29 November 2023

You know that feeling you get when you’re under the weather, functioning at less than one hundred percent, but have an expensive ticket to a bucket list gig? You force yourself out and simply hope for the best, well aware that it’s a bucket list gig you’ll (likely) never again get a chance to tick off?

That was my dilemma last Wednesday evening as I headed for Wellington’s TSB Arena to sate a lifelong desire to see Kraftwerk up close and personal. I need not have worried too much, any fatigue factor was partially mitigated by it being an all-seated event, and naturally Kraftwerk’s arrival on stage soon made me forget about any of those initial concerns.

There they were, almost within touching distance. Four glowing figures. Standing behind their four customary lectern-like structures. No other band* equipment in sight. And none required. 50-plus-years’ worth of cutting edge electronic musical innovation standing right there. Well, founding member Ralf Hutter was there, at least, with support from three band* members with considerably less time on the clock. It was Kraftwerk nonetheless.

*are Kraftwerk a band? Discuss, show workings where applicable.

As the German technocrats worked through the opening phase of their set it immediately became obvious we were about to hear something close to a “greatest hits” show - opening with ‘Numbers’, ‘Computer World’, and ‘Home Computer’ hybrids - and I couldn’t shake the notion that much of this stuff was practically inter-planetary back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when it initially surfaced.

Pre-Microsoft, pre-Windows ’95, pre-Apple, magnificence. And quite visionary when you stop to consider how relatively peripheral to our day-to-day world that kind of technology would remain for at least another decade.

The lightshow effectively amounted to projections on the super-sized screen behind the stage, which was more than enough, with each graphic or image perfectly synchronized with what we were hearing. ‘Spacelab’ courted us momentarily with screen shots of Aotearoa and Wellington itself, garnering an additional cheer from many, yet oddly provoking an involuntary bout of inner cringe from yours truly (why does it always have to be about “us”, huh? – Cynical Ed).

And it may have just been me, but five tracks into it, when ‘The Man Machine’ launched itself upon us, it felt like the gig suddenly took on another gear. Was it just a not-so-subtle increase in volume? … or had the pill I didn’t take somehow just kick in? It wasn’t just me, there was an immediate buzz all around me, and I felt sure the entire arena had instantaneously lifted itself couple of feet off the ground, at the very least.

Then the mid-set run: a veritable feast of everything that’s great about technology, and perhaps, 1970s Germany – visually and aurally … ‘Autobahn’, ‘Computer Love’, ‘The Model’ and ‘Neon Lights’, followed immediately by the weightiness of the always relevant but hopefully no longer quite-so-relevant ‘Radioactivity’, which ended with quite a crunch. Deliberately or otherwise (ie. slight technical glitch?), the bass-driven crescendo felt like it fair blew a hole in the very foundations of the venue itself.

‘Tour de France’ took us on a journey, a retro-trip in fact, back to when the world existed only in black and white, whilst simultaneously, musically, steering us well into the distant future. The less familiar ‘Vitamin’ followed, before what might have been the only programming or sequencing hiccup of the night, right at the start of a still quite sensational ‘Trans-Europe Express’; it seemed for a moment as though one of the quartet had briefly fluffed his lines, Hutter glancing sideways at the offender, but no real damage was done.

From there it was distinctly end-game stuff, and the slow build in tension to that earlier mid-set mini-peak was given wider context by a rush of pure unadulterated electro to end the show – after the relatively sedate, but still glorious, ‘The Robots’ had given us the calm before the climactic storm: a ‘Boing Boom Tschak’ / ‘Techno Pop’ / ‘Musique Non-Stop’ hybrid beast of a thing ending a show that will live long in the memory.

No encore, none called for, and none required. Everyone in that crowd had had their fill. And more. It was a gig well worth getting off my woe-is-me lethargic arse for, and one truly befitting the bucket list tag I’d long since given it.

Just a final word for Ralf Hutter himself: that man is 77, yet he stood there for a full two hours directing proceedings, amid the heat, the noise, the visual bombardment, and the pressure to perform; singing, vocoder-ing (is that a thing?), and fiddling with all manner of synthetic gadgetry. But at the end, there he was, the last man standing. Remarkable.

Gig photos courtesy of nothingelseon. With thanks.

Gig Review: Kevin Bridges @ MFC, Wellington, 7 November 2023

Walking into the Michael Fowler Centre last Tuesday night I worried that I might already know all of Kevin Bridges’ best material. I’ve seen so many online clips of the prolific comedian’s live performances across the past decade or so, I feared it could be a night of few genuine surprises.

But that outcome, of course, would be completely at odds with one of stand-up’s many unwritten rules; a new tour - in this case, Bridges’ ‘The Overdue Catch-Up’ tour - is almost always about unveiling brand new work. New stories, new jokes, and a bunch of fresh takes. A new tour is the comedy equivalent of a musician or band releasing a brand new album.

 I missed the Glaswegian funny man the last time he performed in Wellington in 2017, but his reputation clearly proceeds him in this part of the world, because he all but sold out the MFC (the kitset-like wooden interior of the venue is “like a giant Ikea” according to Bridges), with a large portion of the capital’s (and beyond) ex-pat Scottish community firmly in tow.

In fact, Bridges must have wondered what all the fuss was about when he arrived on stage, just after a chorus of boos rang out around the venue – on account of some jobsworth “security steward” having asked a group of patrons to remove the large Saltire they’d hung from the front row of the theatre’s second tier.

It turns out “Owen fae Dunfermline” was responsible for that little piece of mischievous patriotism, and the Saltire soon reappeared, exactly where it shouldn’t. Bridges quickly spotted it and immediately had a little fun with Owen during the first segment of his set.

Bridges loves a bit of banter with his audience, and for the most part that’s one of the best things about his comedy. The connection, the humanity, the cheeky-chappy persona, and the sense that he’s really just an ordinary guy getting paid to share his close observations about everyday life. But it doesn’t always work out, and it could be that on this particular night, Bridges overestimated the intelligence of those he was about to banter with.

It was a feature of the night, and not necessarily in a good way. Pass marks and bouquets for Owen, and a “57-year-old” man who challenged Bridges’ assertion that teenagers drink less these days, but a firm brickbat to the clearly drunk English woman who kept wanting to involve herself. “You’re a cunt” she yelled, to the appreciation of exactly nobody, before Bridges reminded her - and perhaps himself, through gritted teeth - that he was “a cunt she was paying money to see”.

And a brickbat to the guy wearing “the Cowboys” tee who refused to engage, and perhaps an only slightly less violent gong for Bridges’ selected “local” translator in the front row, who tried to engage but evidently had issues speaking the language coherently.

Sometimes audience engagement works out just fine and adds to the flavour of the gig, but on this occasion it only seemed to leave Bridges scratching his head and regretting it. At one or two moments, particularly near the end, Bridges had to essentially beg rogue wannabe participants to quieten down just so he could get to the end of his story.

Other than those unforeseen hiccups, Bridges was in pretty good form. He reminded us that so much has happened in the six years since he was last in Wellington, with warzones in Europe and the Middle East, with Covid, and the small matter of him getting married and becoming a father during that period.

Covid and its fall-out is ripe subject matter at present naturally, and Bridges returned to it a few times during the course of a set which also had gags around bullying, cancel culture, insomnia, social media, technology and the internet, yet one of the biggest cheers - but not so much for yours truly - was reserved for a tale about hemorrhoids which crossed over nicely with an amusing observation about Instagram gym junkies.

Now in his mid-30s, although he seems to have been around a lot longer, Bridges also indulged in morsels of obligatory self-deprecation, having a laugh at the boy and young man he was, while also having a wee crack at his older present day self.

He managed around 80 minutes and was good value for most of it, all unwanted interruptions aside. All of his gags were new to me, and I suspect many of these stories will only get better, and probably even added to, as the tour continues.

The opener/support slot was Londoner Carl Donnelly. Not Carl Connelly, as the promo flyers suggested. Imagine getting a career break to perform 12,000 miles from home as the support for a popular headline star and the lazy marketing people only go and get your name wrong?

Donnelly did a relatable and mostly funny 20-minute set covering off his Irish heritage, his physical decline into middle age, and turned his (and his partner’s) struggles with IVF into a series of quips about wanking. He looks like one to keep an eye on.

Gig Review: Dennis Bovell @ Meow, Wellington, 21 October 2023

I had no idea what to expect when I rocked up to Meow on Saturday night for the Dennis Bovell gig. Would it be a simple DJ set, or a performance set from the prolific UK dub producer? I was not fussed either way, and as it happened, it turned out to be a little bit of both.

The truth is, as an MBE-toting 70-year-old master of his craft, Bovell can do whatever the hell he wants. He has nothing left to prove. The man’s a legend within dub and reggae circles, and the vast majority of us present - the venue was around seventy percent full - were there simply to share the same rarified air as Dennis Bovell. To be in the same room. And to bask in the privilege of it.

So we got Bovell the selecta, Bovell the toaster, Bovell the performer, and morsels of Bovell the man, especially on those almost stream-of-consciousness moments when - often mid-track - he decided to share a short anecdote or memory with us. Which was more than occasional, and this gig was easily one of the more artist-chat-friendly interactive sets I’ve attended.

Musically it was mostly about Bovell playing selected tracks he’s been associated with across his long and fruitful career. Whether that involvement was as a vocalist, as a guitarist/musician, or more commonly, as a producer. He’d play those tracks, toast over the top, freestyling along, spontaneously singing the intro to one tune, or joining in on another song mid-chorus or part way through. It appeared random and unplanned, carefree and unproduced, which very much added to its charm.

As a selector, Bovell has impeccable taste. A taste honed by years of grassroots involvement with his genre of choice. His set was a hybrid concoction of reggae, rocksteady, ska, soul, and dub.

You know the drill: a selection of big bottom-heavy bass-driven tunes that at times had the venue shaking at its structural core. The best of which, for me, included tunes from Toots, Sly & Robbie, Gregory Isaacs, and Dennis Brown. But there was plenty for everyone.

There was a cool story about how Bovell had beefed up and reggae-fied a Sade track from the artist’s Soldier of Love album, after Sade herself had requested it upon sending Bovell the vocal stems. And there was some high praise for a kindred spirit of sorts, Linton Kwesi-Johnson, when offering up an LKJ gem he’d collaborated on.

We even got the odd Matumbi track, with Matumbi of course being the UK-based 1970s reggae act which gave Bovell his initial exposure.

The dub production and technical side of Bovell’s wider skillset was far less obvious - mostly only identifiable with the odd tempo or pitch change, and there wasn’t much in the way of the extra effects or wizardry Bovell would otherwise have at his fingertip disposal inside a studio.

I was later informed Bovell played for “three hours” or more, but my own lethargy and relative sobriety meant I managed only around two hours of the set, happy enough just to have experienced Bovell up close and personal, even if only briefly.

 

Gig Review: Fontaines D.C. @ Shed 6, Wellington, 29 January 2023

During a weekend where extreme weather events saw the cancellation of mid-summer gigs and events right across Aotearoa – most notably in Auckland where Elton John was (twice) cancelled and the popular Laneway Festival belatedly canned – it was of some relief that Sunday night’s Wellington leg of the Fontaines D.C. Australasian tour went ahead without any disruption.

 It helped of course, that the Irish band’s gig was scheduled at an indoor venue, Shed 6, on Wellington’s waterfront. Although to be fair, the weather in the capital city – sporadic showers – was in no way as catastrophic as the torrential rain Auckland and the far north was battered with. Flooding was so severe, a Civil Defence State of Emergency remained in place in Auckland across the entire weekend and beyond. Whisper it, but the word is, there’s more to come.

Having been relieved of Monday Laneway duties, there was a sense that the Fontaines were doubly keen to whip up a storm of their own in the capital, and that’s exactly what they achieved. With a 90-minute onslaught of pure state-of-the-art post-punk. The band reeling off a set which covered most of the key tracks from each of their three album releases to date.

There was a brief but poignant blast of Television – in tribute to the newly departed Tom Verlaine (R.I.P.) – just before the band arrived on stage, sans regular guitarist Carlos O’Connell, who is on “expectant dad” duties, replaced on this trip to the antipodes by The Altered Hours’ guitarist Cathal MacGabhann.

A terrific opening double whammy of ‘A Lucid Dream’ and ‘A Hero’s Death’, off the band’s 2020 album of the same name, set the scene rather nicely, before a run through highlights like ‘Sha Sha Sha’, ‘I Don’t Belong’, and ‘How Cold Love Is’, propelled us to something of a mid-set peak featuring a raucous ‘Televised Mind’ and ‘Jackie Down the Line’.

 Personal favourite ‘Roman Holiday’ offered another mini peak ten minutes later, by which time I’d abandoned the heaving throng closer to the stage for a sedate spot with more breathing room somewhere near the back – the venue was at about ninety percent capacity, if not fully sold out, and it was uncomfortably hot and sticky once the band were in full flight and the crowd fully engaged.

A punked-up take on ‘Nabokov’ followed, before an equally snotty version of ‘Too Real’ notionally closed the show … but you just knew there was going to be an encore, nobody was leaving, and naturally Fontaines D.C. were able to oblige with a couple of hitherto overlooked bangers in the form of Dogrel favourite ‘Boys in the Better Land’, and ‘I Love You’, off last year’s Skinty Fia album.

The band was tight throughout (makeshift guitarist and all), driven by a take-no-prisoners rhythm section, and in the form of Grian Chatten, the Fontaines have a front man who one hundred percent believes every single word he throws at you in that unmistakable and rather compelling thick Southern Irish brogue.

 Chatten kept interaction with the crowd at a minimal level (ie. barely at all) and whilst there will have been many in the crowd who prefer a band to connect with idle banter, I personally think there was enough of a stage presence about the undeniably charismatic Chatten, who bounces around not unlike a nervous child on the first day of pre-school, to still make a firm connection. And really, why bother with obligatory conventional triggers when the mostly unconventional music largely speaks for itself?

The support was provided by local indie rockers Wiri Donna, who played a short set of solid tunes from their recent EP plus the odd new track. I’d like to see them again, if only for the hugely entertaining bass player, who's in-the-moment facial expressions and (mock?) rock-star posing was a joy to behold.

Photos: Thanks to @nothingelseon for the pics.

Gig Review: The Sisters of Mercy @ Hunter Lounge, Wellington, 26 October 2022

They say you should never meet your heroes. The idea being that they seldom live up to expectation and it often only ever results in disappointment. Sometimes, a variation on that old adage can be applied to seeing your favourite bands perform live. More so, if you’re seeing the band for the first time, some 35 years after their feted heyday.

Such was the case when The Sisters of Mercy played at the Hunter Lounge in Wellington on Wednesday night. Maybe I just expected too much. Perhaps it was because I was a little too sober. I’d read and heard mostly positive reviews of the band’s Auckland set the night prior, and felt confident that Sisters v.22 would match my own not unreasonable expectations.

All I wanted was the “hits”, some atmosphere, the requisite quota of melodramatic darkness, and a decent light show. Not too much to ask.

What we got was somewhat less than all of the above. Sure, we got the biggest hits (hits, in context of the 1980s indie charts), but we also got a lot of new-ish, unreleased material - around 50 percent of the set list - which ultimately failed to stir the loins, and virtually all of the hits felt a lot less than the sum of their original parts.

When the set opened with ‘Don’t Drive on Ice’, a relative newbie which wouldn’t have been out of place on the band’s faux-metal Vision Thing album, it felt a little bit like hearing a very good karaoke replica. The sound was thin, a little tinny even, and I felt certain the volume inside the packed venue was somehow muted, if not a little muddy. Surely they’ll amp things up and sort out the mix?

But no, nothing changed as we weaved our way through a 20-something strong set list. Newer tunes were dispersed at regular intervals, easily the best of which was ‘But Genevieve’, alongside a run of better known work which included a lightweight ‘Alice’, ‘Marian’, ‘More’, ‘Detonation Boulevard’ and The Sisterhood epic, ‘Giving Ground’, which briefly had me upping my inner goth to feet shuffling and head-nod mode. Nothing really pulsated my chest or buckled my knees.

I was pleased Vision Thing’s slower-paced sleeper gem ‘I Was Wrong’ was included, but by this time I was despairing a little too much for main man Andrew Eldritch, his once majestically deep baritone now a mere shadow, replaced in 2022 with a sort of unhappy-go-lucky growl.

When the time for an obligatory encore arrived, the band did appear to up the ante a bit, perhaps in anticipation that their night’s work was almost done, and versions of ‘Lucretia, My Reflection’, ‘Temple of Love’, and ‘This Corrosion’ were as good as could be expected, given the rest of the night.

I get that sometimes a band can become tour-worn and jaded. I get that a band can fall prone to merely phoning-in a performance on occasion. And I get that a band wants to introduce new work to an audience ostensibly there to celebrate the stuff they already know.

But the gig just lacked “soul”. There was no real sense of authenticity. Both guitarists could well have been cutouts from a Sisters tribute act, and Eldritch himself was fairly underwhelming as a posturing frontman just going through the motions. Almost like he was trying to resist the urge to take the piss out of himself and failing badly. And yes, I appreciate that you can’t ever take this genre too seriously … and sometimes you should never meet your heroes.

PS. The support act was Brisbane duo Elko Fields, a curious mix of the White Stripes and The Kills’ aesthetic, and they played about half a dozen raucous songs to an enthusiastic reception.

Photos: @nothingelseon, thanks bro.

Gig Review: Courtney Barnett, San Fran, Wellington, 9 July 2021

Okay, so this review is a bit late to the party. Courtney Barnett’s short New Zealand jaunt is almost over. Which means any sort of comment I make on it is already largely redundant. But I feel compelled to post a few words about her opening night in Wellington a few Fridays back, just for posterity’s sake. Just because I was there. A sure sign that gigs are few and far between for me at present. 

The Friday night at San Fran was the first night of a three-night sold out run at the venue for the popular Aussie indie troubadour.

Support was provided by Emily Edrosa, and San Fran was already packed to overflowing when I arrived to catch the last 15 minutes of Edrosa’s well-received set. In all honesty, I wasn’t overly impressed with what I heard, but that may have been more to do with the fact that I was heavily distracted, and frustrated, by not being able to find a comfortable standing spot amid the throng of activity around me. I eventually settled for a spot at the rear of the venue, while my more resilient gig-companion opted for somewhere much closer to the stage. 

Barnett arrived on stage at 9.30pm and for the next 70 minutes she offered us an absorbing mix of decade-old songs and brand spanking new ones, an Arthur Russell cover, and a Kurt Vile duet that wasn’t really a duet at all. 

After opening with long-time favourite ‘Avant Gardner’, the solo Barnett then gave us ‘Walkin’ on Eggshells’ and ‘Dead Fox’ before being joined on stage by current co-conspirator Stella Mozgawa (of Warpaint) for new single ‘Rae Street’, which was followed by another new track, and the aforementioned Russell cover, ‘I Never Get Lonesome’. Mozgawa then exited proceedings temporarily. 

There was a lot of audience banter and interaction throughout, with the in-joke being that a lot of enthusiastic fans knew all of the lyrics and Barnett was quite happy to let the crowd sing along unaccompanied at various points. Never more so than on gig centrepiece ‘Depreston’, a highly relatable tune about the minutiae of suburban living, and easily the highlight of the night for yours truly. That song really has morphed into something of a signature tune for Barnett. 

Barnett sang both parts in the Kurt Vile “duet” ‘Let It Go’, which was slightly odd - if understandable, given Vile’s absence. That was followed by ‘Sunday Roast’ before Mozgawa returned to the stage for another brief run of songs from the pair’s upcoming collaborative album, Things Take Time, Take Time. 

All of the new tunes had a pronounced country/folkie flavour, and all were enjoyable enough. The sort that will doubtlessly grow in familiarity over time, with the album, as I understand it, not due for a full release until November. 

We finished up with ‘History Eraser’ and a one-song encore, ‘Nameless Faceless’, but not before Barnett had described the gig as “the best night of my life” in her finest deadpan voice.

I had my doubts about the authenticity of that statement, but much younger, less cynical attendees lapped it up and seemed convinced. As I set off to brave the chilly Wellington elements, post-gig, I tried to recall the last occasion (pre-lockdown) I’d seen an “international” artist live on stage at San Fran, but it was a forlorn task, and I was mostly just happy to have enjoyed a rare night out.    

Gig Review: The Beths, San Fran, Wellington, 9 October 2020

The Beths last Friday night at Wellington’s San Fran was either the third or fourth occasion I’ve managed to catch the band live on stage. But it was my own first live experience for a number of months (beyond DJ sets) thanks to the way Covid-19 has played havoc with the live music scene, both here in Aotearoa and overseas. It’s fair to say then, that this gig, the first of three successive sold out nights for the band at the same venue, was one I had long looked forward to. I was never likely to be disappointed.

One of the best things about a Beths live set in 2020 is the fact that the band now have two full albums worth of material to draw from, in addition to an earlier EP. Even better, is that virtually all of band’s tunes translate effortlessly in a live environment. In fact, it could be argued that loud and live is easily the best way to consume the music of The Beths. 

Before the gig was even 10 minutes old we’d already been treated to a punchy power pop masterclass with the band drawing one track from each of those three releases; opening with ‘I'm Not Getting Excited’ from Jump Rope Gazers, followed by ‘Great No One’ from Future Me Hates Me, before hitting an early peak with long-time crowd favourite, ‘Whatever’, which first appeared on that underrated debut EP. 

And for the next 70-odd minutes, as we traversed our way through the band’s catalogue, zig-zagging between releases, it was all about tight compact tunes, high energy levels, and charming pop hooks. Jonathan Pearce threw in the odd rock-god mini-solo, but as ever, it was the unassuming nerdy presence of Elizabeth Stokes nonchalantly guiding the band to new heights on tracks like ‘Jump Rope Gazers’, ‘Little Death’, and encore highlight ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’. 

As gigs go, this one was close to perfect. One minor, very minor, quibble: I realise it’s election time and there’s a cannabis referendum to tick ‘’yes’’ to, and a Green Party to help get across the line, or a women-in-rock initiative to promote, but each time the band stopped to share their “message” they flirted with the prospect of losing hard-earned momentum. It just felt a little contrived and it interrupted the flow just a bit. And given all the saturation electioneering happening elsewhere, it was probably unnecessary anyway (ok, boomer!). 

A shout out too, to support band Vera Ellen, a local six or seven-piece with some amount of attitude. There was a sense that they were all about seizing the moment, throwing everything at us, from psych-freak-outs to edgy punk, and discovering that a whole lot of it was able to stick. Definitely one to keep an eye on. 

As usual, in my semi-drunken state, I took a whole bunch of photos and filmed a few clips, but unsurprisingly none of them turned out to be blog-worthy quality. Even poor hobby-blog-worthy ...

Choice Kiwi Cuts 2019: Miss June - Anomaly

Of all the gigs I attended in 2019, few captured the spirit of raw rock n roll quite like Miss June’s mid-year set at Wellington’s Meow. It may have been a midweek gig, I can’t recall, but I do know I wasn’t feeling particularly up for it. No problem: the band quickly won me over with its adrenalin-infused version of homegrown punk and obligatory wild stage antics. At one point, vocalist Annabel Liddell was swinging from the rafters, or more specifically, the ceiling-mounted lighting trusses, and it felt like everyone in the room was on the verge of rioting just for the sheer hell of it. Good times. The band's best known track is probably 'Best Girl', but I think footage from this clip for 'Anomaly' - an album cut from their Bad Luck Party debut - perhaps best captures the band's live energy.

Gig Review: Gang of Four, San Fran, Wellington, 13 November 2019

I broke a golden rule. A personal rule. The one which dictates that I don’t go to see reformed bands from the 80s unless something close to an original line-up remains intact. 

At the Gang of Four gig at San Fran last Wednesday night, the only original band member still in place was guitarist Andy Gill, who represents just one quarter of the band’s famed foursome of Allen, Burnham, King, and Gill. That’s the Gang of Four who made the band’s most feted album, Entertainment!, back in 1979. The album we were all there to celebrate the 40th anniversary of, all these years on.

The venue was nonetheless packed. A sell out, some nine months on from when the gig was initially scheduled (and postponed due to Gill’s illness). A planned second Wellington gig on the Thursday was also in the process of selling out (and may well have done so).

As it turned out, my “rule” was exposed for the nonsense it probably is. Gang of Four were super impressive on the night, and the “new” band members - Thomas McNeice (bass), John Sterry (vocals/melodica), and Tobias Humble (drums) - all added a lot of life, energy, and love to a set of tunes that have stood the test of time.

The fractured funk rhythms of ‘Anthrax’ kicked things off in no uncertain terms, offering an early taste of the pulverising basslines that tend to dominate the band’s best work.

We then got a procession of the politically-motivated tunes that have always best represented the beating heart of Entertainment!, with stand-outs (for me) including ‘Not Great Men’, ‘At Home He’s A Tourist’, ‘Guns Before Butter’, and ‘Damaged Goods’, before a raucous take on ‘I Found That Essence Rare’ took things to a mid-set peak and a curious (yet brief) interlude.

After the short break, the band then set about ticking the promised “other hits” box, a pick and mix assortment which basically amounted to a “best of the rest” of non-Entertainment! cuts. Highlights included ‘I Love A Man In Uniform’ (off Songs of the Free), and the closing track ‘What We All Want’ (off Solid Gold).

This segment also included energetic vocalist Sterry taking to a strategically placed on-stage microwave with a rather large piece of wood, something which might be considered a bizarre turn of events were it not completely aligned with the band’s well documented anti-consumerism stance. In this instance it seems a poor microwave was deemed the night’s symbol of capitalist repression.

Shortly before 11pm, after something close to 90 minutes (all told) the gig was done, and Gang of Four exited the stage without an encore – or even any requests for an encore. It’s odd perhaps, but that seemed about right for this gig; surely nobody would have felt short-changed by what they'd just witnessed, and Gang of Four have always been about breaking those time-honoured pesky rules. 

No regrets from me either that I’d broken one of my own rules in order to attend. There are certain bands and albums that transcend any level of ridiculous rock-snobbery. I’ve been regularly listening to Entertainment! for roughly 35 years, so original band or not, I wasn’t going to pass up the rare chance to see it performed live.

And maybe it’s a rule that I’ll need to be more flexible with in future? 

(Support had been provided by veteran local post-punkers the Uncools, but I caught only the tail end of that set, walking in to hear the closer (and Snapper cover), ‘Buddy’, which immediately had me questioning my tardy arrival time and wondering what else I may have missed.)

Gig Review: The Beths, San Fran, Wellington, 8 November 2019

Sometimes you just know when you’re in the company of a band right at the top of its game. I got a sense of that earlier this year at a wild midweek Miss June set at Meow, and there was a distinct whiff of it last Friday night at San Fran with The Beths.

Tiny Ruins guy A.C. Freazy (and full band) offered a pretty decent synth-poppy opening set which culminated with The Beths surprising the packed venue by appearing on stage to assist with a closing cover of Sheryl Crow’s ‘If It Makes You Happy’ ... something that resulted in a fairly lively crowd singalong.

That rousing support finale put pressure on The Beths to hit the ground running immediately, and the band didn’t disappoint, opening their set proper with a tight, driving take on ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’, the first of many cuts from the band’s popular debut album of 2018. 

Those tunes included long-time favourites like ‘Whatever’ and that album’s title track, ‘Future Me Hates Me’, but it’s clear that a follow-up album can’t be too far away, with the set also serving as an introduction to a good number of new songs, all of which sound great in a live setting. 

We also got an unexpected cover of Crowded House’s ‘Fall At Your Feet’, a rare quieter moment, but an equally well received one as the gig then built to a stirring crescendo, and the band closed an hour-plus set rather fittingly with ‘Little Death’, one of my own favourites from Future Me Hates Me.

While I’ve seen The Beths before, I haven’t seen them in this sort of form before, at a peak level where the band has clearly benefitted from the busy touring schedule undertaken over the past year or so – both at home and overseas.

There’s a sense that they’ve improved markedly during those sojourns and there was a tightness and an air of confidence about this San Fran gig – the first of two successive nights at the venue – something that wasn’t always evident the last time I saw The Beths at Meow in September last year.

A triumphant return.

Album Review: New Order - ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes ... (2019)

I’m not sure the world needed a New Order live album in 2019, but we’ve got one anyway.

The awkwardly (or ridiculously) titled ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes ... was recorded live at the Old Granada Studios during the band’s five night residency in July of 2017, as part of that summer’s Manchester International Festival. 

The album features a 12-piece synthesizer ensemble with composer-arranger Joe Duddell, but naturally, what can’t be captured on the double CD or triple album set - despite being referenced in the title - are the visuals provided by renowned English NYC-based conceptual artist Liam Gillick. Perhaps there’s a DVD for that? 

To be honest, the additional synths barely make an impact and aren’t particularly obvious to my ears. The live warts n’all feel is rich or pure enough, but mostly the album is a little patchy in both content and execution. 

Certainly, anyone expecting a greatest hits-type setlist will be disappointed. None of the band’s early hits are included - no regular live favourites like ‘Temptation’, ‘Age of Consent’ or even ‘Blue Monday’ - but we do get a decent take on ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, plus middling singles like ‘Sub-culture’ and ‘Shellshock’. Also, there’s some Joy Division stuff - ‘Disorder’, ‘Decades’, and ‘Heart & Soul’, included amongst the 18 tracks on offer. 

It seems obvious that this set was more about giving less heralded album cuts an outing – see the likes of ‘All Day Long’, ‘Vanishing Point’, ‘Your Silent Face’, and ‘Elegia’. And given that vocals are one of the least impressive features of the release (sorry Barney), I should add that my favourites on the album are ‘Ultraviolence’ (minimal vocals) and a pretty epic instrumental opening track, ‘Times Change’ (off Republic). 

There are better New Order live releases out there – many fans will argue Live at Bestival 2012 easily trumps this one. In fact, there are probably better New Order live bootlegs out there. I picked this up because I’m a New Order completist, but really, I’m left with the feeling that this adds very little to the band’s wider legacy.  

Gig Review: Blam Blam Blam, St Peters Hall, Paekakariki, 31 August 2019

Saturday nights don’t get much more Kiwiana than a quick drink at the Paekakariki pub, then popping over the road to the St Peters Village Hall for a nostalgia fuelled Blam Blam Blam reunion gig. That’s exactly how my Saturday night unfolded, and it was nothing short of terrific from start to finish. 

The Paekakariki set was the band’s sixth of seven reunion gigs played across the country in little more than a week, with the tour’s finale locked in for a matinee show at Wellington’s Meow on the Sunday. Personally, the Saturday night gig held a lot more appeal even if the surrounds were less auspicious and the venue itself - as a community trust-run hall - was unlicensed. There was just something so very fitting about it, and past experiences informed me that few venues in this part of the world could offer the same peak levels of acoustic clarity. I’d seen the band just once before, back in 1981, right at the start of their long and very fragmented musical journey. 38 years between drinks had been a long wait.

Phoenix Foundation dude, Luke Buda, offered a surprise support slot by throwing in a little bit of everything, managing to fit acoustic pop, guitar solos, loops, and keyboard-led power ballads into an impressive half hour set. Apparently, it was Buda’s very first live solo performance, something that I found hard to fathom, given his longevity and wider national-level profile. He was the perfect curtain-raiser. 

Blam Blam Blam - Don McGlashan (drums, euphonium, and vocals), Mark Bell (guitar), and Tim Mahon (bass) - took centre stage at 9.20pm and didn’t let up for something close to 100 minutes. Each new track - starting with rollicking instrumental ‘Dr Who’ and finishing with signature tune ‘No Depression in New Zealand’ - being greeted with large smiles and knowing nods by those in attendance. Which amounted to a packed hall of mostly 40 and 50-somethings. A few younger, and a few older, some local, and a lot of townies visiting the wilds for their own Saturday night fix. It was a full house. 

I already knew it, but I’ve probably never said it out loud before; if the gig confirmed one thing for me it is that Don McGlashan is a rare talent. A musical genius. A living breathing national treasure. I’d forgotten what a great drummer he is, and his stick work was a real feature of the night, but his mastery of the euphonium really is next level. That rarely used weapon (in a “pop” context, at least) added depth and texture to a number of key tracks, with the best example coming on an epic version of ‘Don’t Fight It Marsha (it’s bigger than both of us)’ near the end. That tune remains a genre-defying trip, all these years on. 

Mark Bell was flawless on guitar, driving tunes like ‘Battleship Grey’, ‘Businessmen’, and ‘Like My Job’ to inevitable peaks, while adding craft and subtlety on more eccentric stuff like ‘Got To Be Guilty’ and ‘Bystanders’. Tim Mahon was not without his moments either, holding things together with tight basslines, and providing a brilliant spoken cameo-vocal on what felt like a hugely ironic take on ‘Respect’ … where most in attendance were once those kids being asked to show “respect”, they’re now of an age where they’re the ones most likely demanding it. 

After virtually all of the band’s material from sole studio album ‘Luxury Length’ (and more) had been given an outing and the band downed tools, we knew it wasn’t over. The ‘No Depression’ box had yet to be ticked, so it was absolutely no surprise to see them return for a three-song encore; ‘Luxury Length’, ‘Time Enough’ and naturally, ‘No Depression’ to close. 

Well worth the wait, then. And a night made all the better for the presence of many old (literally) faces and friends amongst the crowd. If things don’t get more Kiwiana than that, they certainly don’t get much more enjoyable either.

Riot On The Radio: Gigs that ended up in a massive punch-up Part 3

The final part of Craig Stephen’s look back at gigs that didn’t turn out so great, including a couple of infamous local riots ...

DD Smash, Queen Street, Auckland, 1984

It was called the ‘Thank God it’s over’ concert to celebrate the end of the university year, but shortly after headliners DD Smash took to the stage at Auckland’s Aotea Centre, the power went off.

As the 10,000-strong audience waited impatiently, a drunken man urinated on the crowd from above; when police tried to arrest him, they were obstructed and bottles were thrown. Arrests followed and then riot police arrived. Dave Dobbyn, DD Smash’s lead singer, apparently told the crowd, “I wish those riot squad guys would stop wanking and put their little batons away.”

Concert promoter Hugh Lynn said a group with a gang connection had kicked the switch for the sound system power supply.

"When the inspector came up on stage and said 'stop the show' I said to him 'that's the worst thing you can do.' If the music had kept going it would have kept the attention of the people but when it stopped they turned to another show - the riot that was building."

When the promoters announced they were pulling the plug, the audience rioted. They poured onto Queen St, Auckland's shopping central, smashed shop windows and left behind broken bottles, rubbish and upturned cars. Dobbyn was later charged with inciting violence, but was cleared of all charges but not without a severe ticking off from the judge.

Suicide, Brussels, 1978 (and everywhere else)

Even punks couldn’t deal with the abrasive New Yorkers. Alan Vega and Martin Rev made Sid Vicious look like a pre-schooler.

They started intimidating their audience early on. Vega: “At one of our first shows, there was a guy who’d brought this trombone. I jumped into the audience, fell over and knocked the slide out of his trombone. The crowd took real offence to that, so they attacked us with chairs, tables, anything they could get their hands on. That became the norm. I started carrying a bicycle chain on stage, figuring, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

At Suicide’s European gigs the booing began shortly after they took the stage. Full beer bottles began to be thrown. In England a skinhead jumped up on to the stage and thumped Vega, breaking his nose. In Scotland an axe was thrown at them.

"In the seventies I was afraid for my life every night but that didn’t matter, it energised me,” Vega later said.

In Brussels in 1978, opening for Elvis Costello the audience booed, heckled, and eventually stole Vega’s microphone. Costello was so disgusted that he delivered a shortened set, then walked off stage. The crowd erupted in a riot and police arrived with tear gas.

The Rolling Stones, Blackpool, 1964

As with Altamont, we can’t blame the band. After 44 years had lapsed, Blackpool finally lifted its ban on the Stones and apologised.

During the gig on 24 July 1964, some in the crowd started to spit at the band. Keith Richards took umbrage at one particular troublemaker and stood on his hands and kicked him in the face.

The place erupted and angry fans smashed crystal chandeliers, tore seats up and smashed a grand piano. About 50 people were treated in hospital. Eventually, police officers with dogs calmed the situation.

The town council then imposed an indefinite ban on the Stones.

Four decades later, the leader of Blackpool Council exonerated the Londoners. "Some sections of the crowd were outraged at the performance – they found it suggestive. Nowadays it would probably seem very normal, but back then the Rolling Stones were very new to the scene and it wasn't something the fans were used to. A lot of people got very wound up. The crowd were hysterical and they went wild and trashed the ballroom.”

Guns N'Roses, St Louis, 1992

Who’d have thought a drug-addled prima donna rock star would instigate a riot?

The trouble kicked off when Axl Rose became frustrated with an unauthorised photographer taking pics, and after security failed to retrieve the camera, Mr Dickhead launched himself into the crowd and snatched it himself, hitting security and fans in the process. He returned to the stage, slammed his microphone down, and stormed off.

A local journalist who hung around like a good hack should do while others fled like cowards, recounted his experience in an open letter to Rose.

“I can still remember certain details vividly: rioters swinging from cables under the light and speaker rigging on the stage, the sound engineer warning me there would be “massive death” if it fell down; police trying to hold the stage by shooting a fire hose at the crowd, though it lacked sufficient water pressure; a man jumping into the stream, then pulling down his pants and waving his penis at the cops.

“There were other things, too: a man with a gash on his shoulder and blood on his face running madly up the aisle; another, his head strapped down, being carried out on a stretcher; Crone (Thomas, a fellow journo) being viciously jabbed in the kidneys by police trying to clear the lower bowl as I shouted that we were members of the press.

“The cops’ response was a string of vulgarities unfit for publication. ‘We’re reporters’, I pleaded. ‘That’s nice,’ another said, as they dumped us down a steep staircase.”

Rose was charged and convicted with four counts of assault and one of property damage, and fined US$50,000.

Bill Haley, Hamburg and Berlin, 1958

In 1958, during a show in Hamburg, Germany, rock and roll stars Bill Haley & His Comets were midway through a set when some teenagers started fighting each other.

About 100 police officers arrived, which at first didn’t deter these hardy pugilists who also chucked various objects until the concert was pulled.

Later that month, when the Comets played at the Sportpalast in Berlin, another riot erupted with five police officers being badly beaten and six fans hospitalised. In West Germany, the riots were condemned as examples of out-of-control juvenile delinquency, and in the East the authorities called Haley a “rock and roll gangster” with an anti-socialist agenda.

BW Festival, Gisborne, 2015

Stuff reported on the 1st of January 2015 that 63 people were arrested and 83 injured, with seven of those hospitalised.

Police told the so-called newspaper the riot broke out in the festival campgrounds around early evening on New Year’s Eve – the third day of the five-day festival - and the disorder lasted about three hours.

The police were pelted with cans and other objects, vehicles were overturned and fires were lit. Another media report suggested it began when a tent was set on fire.

The campground director said a mob mentality took over when a small group started to cause trouble.

"It's hard to say where it starts really but they started to cause trouble, started to light fires and just create general unrest. That built into a bit of a mob mentality and then they start to move in mass I guess, start to do things like charge the fences and break down the internal fences and things like that."

The festival line-up included Shapeshifter, David Dallas, Peking Duk, Sticky Fingers, Home Brew and Flume.