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).