Bands popping off in Pōneke: Baldleaf

I am a mas­sive fan of ear­ly shoegaze like Slow­dive, My Bloody Valen­tine, Ride, and real­ly any­thing with that ethe­re­al, dream­like qual­i­ty that trans­ports you from your bed­room or local venue into the clouds. For this rea­son I was extreme­ly excit­ed to dis­cov­er the music of Baldleaf, self described “5 chip 1 fish”, and their […]

Bands popping off in Pōneke: Debt Club

Debt Club is a band whose sound has gone through a major evo­lu­tion since their ori­gins as high school friends in “The Clas­sic”. Under­go­ing some changes in their orig­i­nal line­up, their sound has also moved from more tra­di­tion­al clas­sic rock to an eclec­tic mix of indie, folk rock and alter­na­tive coun­try. In an impres­sive live […]

Bands popping off in Pōneke: Mall Goth

“I’m hav­ing a ner­vous break­down on stage, if it was any­where else you would think I was crazy. But I’ve some­how man­aged to trick you into think­ing it’s cool. Unless you think we suck, I guess, that’s okay too,” says lead singer of Mall Goth on stage at San Fran, where the band is becom­ing […]

Review: Hamlet — One Hour. Three Actors. Denmark Will Never Be the Same

As some­one who’s nev­er read or seen a per­for­mance of Ham­let, I might seem like an unlike­ly review­er for TheJoMarsh’s adap­ta­tion at Bats The­atre. How­ev­er, if I, with my inex­pe­ri­ence, can eas­i­ly fol­low and enjoy ‘Ham­let — One Hour. Three Actors. Den­mark Will Nev­er Be the Same,’ then any­one can. In this high-tech, dystopi­an take […]

soup and a scone at Arlo

Best of the Week: May 18–25

Our week­ly wrap-up of what’s good,  this time fea­tur­ing fea­tur­ing Emma, Joan­na and Tom Emma’s bests Best the­atre: Farce Onion at BATS — a deeply warm­ing joy­ous non­sense impro­vised time Best vibes: Still­wa­ter — I only had a drink there with some mates so I can’t speak to the effi­ca­cy of their cof­fee or food […]

Review: Homemade Takeaways

I don’t think any­one will dis­agree with me that it’s been one hell of a year, and Christ­mas is descend­ing on us fast.  So it seemed com­plete­ly appro­pri­ate to be watch­ing a show about peo­ple who’ve had a hell of a year, too, drawn togeth­er at Christ­mas. Annie and Will have grav­i­tat­ed back to the […]

Review: Olive Copperbottom

Leav­ing Cir­ca on Wednes­day after the open­ing night of Olive Cop­per­bot­tom, one of the many things I was feel­ing was deep regret that it was the very first of Pen­ny Ash­ton’s shows that I’d seen, and I’d missed so many oth­ers.  Ash­ton is a bright light.  Her ener­gy, her wit, and her joy were incan­des­cent […]

Review: Macbeth

I went into Mac­beth at the St James com­plete­ly cold — I know Verdi’s lat­er operas, includ­ing his lat­er Shake­speare operas; Otel­lo and Fal­staff.  But I’ve some­how missed Mac­beth, and decid­ed to keep it that way, I guess because it’s so excit­ing to go into some­thing com­plete­ly fresh and new, even if it was writ­ten […]

The Weight of a Thousand Oceans — review & giveaway

Welling­ton writ­ers increas­ing­ly (and entire­ly jus­ti­fi­ably) are view­ing the ongo­ing cli­mate dis­as­ter as a rich source of mate­r­i­al for cre­at­ing intrigu­ing, imag­i­na­tive spec­u­la­tive fic­tion. Based in future worlds where human­i­ty has failed to stop a cat­a­stroph­ic, civ­i­l­iza­­­tion-alter­ing change in the cli­mate sys­tem, these sto­ries of what might be, if we don’t sort our shit out, […]

Review: The Look Of Love

I’ve seen Ali Harp­er before, at Old St Paul’s in 2012, and I was struck by her humour and pro­fes­sion­al­ism then.  It was a fun night out with my Robot Mum and we both enjoyed hear­ing songs we knew, and some we did­n’t, per­formed by some­one who knew her craft and was super skilled. On […]