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: 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.