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: 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.

 

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: Beat Rhythm Fashion, Meow, Wellington, 16 March 2019

There was a strange vibe in and around Wellington city on Saturday night. Everything was a little bit flat, sombre, and low key. As was to be expected in the immediate wake of the Christchurch terrorist attacks less than 36 hours earlier. Sure, there were a few wild revellers about, those keen to escape the stark reality of what had happened by whatever means possible, but as I slowly made my way to the venue via the waterfront and the Cuba Street night market, the early-doors vibe on the periphery of Wellington’s party strip was as subdued as I’ve ever experienced it. 

Having said that, the opening act at Meow, No Broadcast, did their absolute best to change things up a level with a raucous opening set of pure adrenaline-fuelled power rock. That was followed by a far more serene, but nonetheless still very enjoyable, support slot from locals Orangefarm.

Beat Rhythm Fashion, Meow … photo: Iain Cargill

Beat Rhythm Fashion - Nino Birch (vox/guitar), Rob Mayes (bass), and Caroline Easther (drums) - arrived on stage around 10.30pm and Birch immediately addressed the steadily filling (but never close to full) room with a few poignant words about taking some power back, not only from terrorists - in this case the intellectually challenged far-right white nationalists who attacked Christchurch’s mosques - but from scaremongering politicians and the wider mainstream media narrative which helps fuel such repugnant violence. 

It was a theme he’d return to a few times during the evening without wearing it out, and for the most part BRF let their music do the talking, opening with ‘One Percent’ and ‘Fake Peace’, both from the band’s 2019 album, Tenterhook. Third song in, we got one of the gems from the band’s long lost past in the form of the quite lovely ‘Turn of the Century’, with Birch having already taken some time out to acknowledge the band’s local roots, old friends in the crowd, and, of course, his original co-conspirator, brother Dan, who passed away in 2011. That tune was one of the highlights of the early part of the set, as was a heartfelt rendition of ‘Dan’, a song Nino had written in the immediate wake of Dan Birch’s death. 

Most of the set consisted of material from Tenterhook with - in no particular order - tracks like ‘Eulogy’, ‘Whatever’, and ‘Property’, sounding as fresh and crisp in a live setting as they do on the album. The “new” single, but another remnant from the past, ‘Hard as Hell’, got an outing near the end, leading into the band’s classic early single, ‘Beings Rest Finally’, to close a thoroughly absorbing set. 

There were cries from the floor for “more”, naturally, with multiple requests for ‘No Great Oaks’ being knocked back, and Birch admitting the band was not equipped for that particular old favourite. The encore we did get was brief, one song; I think it was ‘Chrysalis Ones’, from Tenterhook, but the fact that I’m not entirely sure about that point is rather more to do with my own worse-for-wear state than anything to do with the band itself. 

A pretty good gig, all told. Everything I thought it would be, despite the slightly surreal circumstances surrounding the night.

Gig Review: The Beths, Meow, Wellington, 14 September 2018

The thing about The Beths is that there’s very little fuss about anything they do. 11pm sharp, following sets by Bad Friend and Hans Pucket, they gathered on stage and launched straight into the title track from the band’s debut album, Future Me Hates Me. It’s short, sharp indie pop at its best, and for the next hour or so, punters at a sold-out Meow were treated to a non-stop procession of tight bouncy tunes from that album, and a few earlier gems from 2016’s Warm Blood EP.

There might not have been much fuss, with lead vocalist Elizabeth Stokes barely interacting with the crowd throughout, save for a few words, but there was an irresistible energy right across the venue, and the first couple of rows back were positively heaving. I felt thankful to be stationed near the rear of the bar and still able to take it all in without subjecting my old bones to any unnecessary Friday night injuries.

All of my own favourites from the album got an outing … ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’, ‘Great No One’, ‘Happy Unhappy’, and ‘Little Death’, were all terrific without being note perfect replicas, which is just how I like it. They all led to a one song encore, ‘Whatever’, which is fast becoming something of a signature tune for a band enjoying a meteoric rise in 2018.

I don’t think for a moment the band itself would consider this particular gig one of its best, there were some timing issues and a couple of dropped notes, and I wondered aloud whether the vocal mix was all it could have been at one point. But none of that mattered in the slightest, this band doesn’t necessarily have to be right at the top of its game to be one of the very best in the country at the moment.

I’m pretty sure the next time The Beths visit the capital, it’ll be to play a bigger venue asking a lot more than a mere $15 on the door.