Wel­ling­ton is a great going-out town with gigs galore on any giv­en night. These are the events that stuck with audi­ences and totally made us blab all over Face­book about how awe­some they were.

Eru Danger­spiel at the Town Hall
Riki Gooch and his 30-piece jug­ger­naut channeled the cos­tume drama of the P‑Funk and won over the funk fatigued with sets of ser­i­ous stam­ina from some of Welly’s finest.  Jonath­an Craw­ford rocked out on the bass after a clas­sic­al slice of grand piano play­ing, Ria Hall was a space god­dess diva in a gold cloak, King Kapisi made a sol­id reappear­ance and there were more top class per­cus­sion­ists than you could throw a stick at.  Two things made this a next level per­form­ance: the 15 piece Danger­spiel choir and visu­als that owned the Town Hall like it has not been owned since the ONYAS.

Sarah Harpur – Life, Death, Pets
Comedi­an Sarah Harpur had impressed us with her work in com­edy trio The Comedi­ettes, but brought the real good stuff with her NZ Com­edy Fest­iv­al show Life, Death, Pets. Her sassy stand-up ranges from her upbring­ing in Dan­nevirke (don’t worry – she escaped) to her slutty cat. Meow. And she even throws in a few music­al num­bers for good meas­ure. Miss Harpur gives the lolz.

Shi­had play­ing Kill­joy at SFBH
A chance to get up close and sweaty with one of Wel­ling­ton’s greatest bands play­ing their argu­ably best album? That deserves some goat throw­ing for sure. From the heavy churn­ing (lol!) riff of ‘You Again’ through to the muted rage of ‘Deb’s Night Out’ and ‘For what you burn’ and the thrash of ‘Bit­ter’ and ‘Get up’, this gig served as a remind­er that the boys wer­en’t always so poppy, but they’ve always been bril­liant.

Image by Domin­ika Ziel­in­ska

Sound­stage: Strike with War­ren Max­well
Strike and War­ren Max­well played a show as part of the Sound­stage series at Down­stage as sneak peak of a full- length show they are plot­ting togeth­er for 2012. The stand­ing ova­tion at the end was well-deserved, War­ren had the crowd eat­ing from his hand from the get-go as he altern­ated between croon­ing and mak­ing him­self one of voices in our heads. Rework­ing some Strike tracks and Little Bush­man num­bers this show went off and prom­ises good things to come. Earplugs were issued for the del­ic­ate of ear but really, harden up!

The Thomas Oliv­er Band at SFBH

Photo by Melissa Cow­an

Wel­ling­ton blues/rock boys played to a sold out San Fran crowd in Octo­ber to cel­eb­rate the release of their latest music video for the single Baby, I’ll Play. One of the high­lights of the night was the entire crowd throw­ing hang looses to the band, Thomas say­ing “A sea of hang looses was one of the most joy­ous sights I’ve seen”. This gig was a well-earned party for their long-time fans and a per­fect intro­duc­tion for the new ones.