Vot­ing in the Fourth Annu­al Wel­ling­tonista Awards is open from Decem­ber 1–15. Then come find out the res­ults at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on Decem­ber 17!

To vote, vis­it this page.

If there’s someone up on a stage, they’d bet­ter deserve to be there. The total immer­sion that comes from being in a crowd all enjoy­ing the same spec­tacle can be indes­crib­able. These are the shows that stood out for us.

Fur Patrol at Starry Nights: There’s some­thing par­tic­u­larly magic­al about the Starry Nights con­cert – the Phoenix Foundation’s gig took out this cat­egory last year. Fur Patrol’s gig was on a slightly misty night, and they delib­er­ately chose their most floaty-vocaled songs to drift beau­ti­fully across the water. A couple of tunes even fea­tured a “chor­us of ‘angles’” made up of a who’s who of Wel­ling­ton musi­cians. Fur Patrol have played a lot of gigs lately, but this is one that will stand out across time.

 

Bob Log III at the Mighty Mighty Third Birth­day: Not only did Bob end up with a nude man onstage wear­ing a rab­bit mask (after­wards he said he had no idea as he was unable to see much through his hel­met, but had wondered “why the crowd went strangely quiet for a while”), he boob-scotched a couple of people, had some girls rid­ing his knees and was sup­por­ted by a vodka slide, Wellington’s own one-man band Double Ya D, met­al her­oes Detrytus, Auck­land biker lov­ing imports The Don Kings and plenty of dan­cing love­lies. A per­fect selec­tion for the Mighty Birth­day 2009!


Fuse Cir­cus for The Nav­ig­at­ors: In the past they wowed us with Heav­enly Bur­lesque and Grav­ity and Oth­er Myths. With The Nav­ig­at­ors, Fuse stepped things up more and exan­ded the world of cir­cus more than we could have pos­sibly expec­ted – we are not the only ones to think so:

“The verve and nerve of the five per­formers is unmis­tak­able. Their suc­cess lies as much in their the­at­ric­al­ity as in their extraordin­ary physicality…The over­whelm­ing impres­sion they leave is of a group clev­erly lacing dazzling accom­plish­ment in the air with some­thing more akin to true theatre, for they claim more than our fas­cin­ated gaze. In play­ing so whole­heartedly from their ima­gin­a­tion they invite a response in kind.” – Lind­say Clark, Theatre­view.

Rhi­an Shee­han at Down­stage: The debut sea­son of Downstage’s Sunday music pro­gramme Sound­stage has been a roar­ing suc­cess. The Woolshed Ses­sions, Little Bush­man, Sam F Scott and The B.O.P, Rhi­an Shee­han and Sparta­cus R have all have worked the hell out of the the­at­ric­al envir­on­ment, util­ising exist­ing sets from cur­rent plays at Down­stage and incor­por­at­ing multi-media effects, poetry and dance.
All have been eagerly anti­cip­ated and played to capa­city audi­ences but the word on the street (and the buzz on Twit­ter) has Rhi­an Sheen­han as the top show of an out­stand­ing series. Rhi­an Shee­han played his entire album Stand­ing in Silence live, with a full com­ple­ment of musi­cians, includ­ing two per­cus­sion­ists and a string sec­tion. The show also included gor­geous visu­als by Gareth Moon (Nek­tar). Com­bin­ing elec­tron­ic ele­ments with 15 live musi­cians is an ambi­tious feat. High­lights included an incred­ible middle sec­tion with a lush and emotive string theme, bring­ing some audi­ence mem­bers to tears (of joy).

Ques­tion Time at Par­lia­ment: This is Wel­ling­ton, so of course we’ve got to get all polit­ic­al up on it. If you treat the spec­tacle of the grown-ups who are sup­posed to be run­ning our coun­try act­ing like snotty-nosed little chil­dren as an art piece that you just don’t quite under­stand, it’s much easi­er to deal with.  (Get all vir­tu­al on it here).