Listening to: Our new neighbours

I’m one of these people who regrets stuff they’ve never done. On that list is a series of concerts that I regret never going to:

• The Cure at the Wellington Town Hall for the ‘Wish’ tour.
• U2 at Western Springs for the Zoo TV tour.
• Shihad at the Wellington Town Hall… ever.

Last night I was able to knock an item off that list.

I think there is something about seeing a live act playing in their favourite venue in their home town. It’s kinda like the rock version of a home game… everything gets nudged to 11. This is definitely the case with Shihad (oh yes.. the all knowing wikipedia has an entry for little ole Shihad).

When Shihad play in Wellington they play for friends, family and, being a typically parochial bunch of kiwi lads, they play for the love of it. A few years ago I saw them live at what was then the Parthenon (and what is now a Greek Orthodox event center). They had just changed their name to Pacifier, but we all still shouted ‘Shihad!’. Even though the venue was very substandard the event was great as the guys played to impress a home crowd. Last night it was at a whole new level. The home crowd was there but the venue was the magical Wellington Town Hall (it is one of the few venues where you can get the vibe of a huge crowd and the intimacy of a pub brawl).

The band obviously enjoyed being home and this exuberance came out in the intensity of their playing and the energy that they poured into their set. They received that energy back tenfold. When the crowd was told to go ‘fucking wild’ it did… the entire ground floor would devolve into a seething, leaping, mass of bodies. If there was a tower or stack of speakers the guys stood on it. At one point Jon Toogood climbed up the speaker stack onto the upper balcony where he played the closing minutes of the song (for a moment there I thought he was going to dive into the crowd guitar and all):

Being an serial abuser of the volume control I now go to these events with ear plugs. Between encores last night I would take out an ear plug and the thunderous roar of the audience would fill my head… they were so loud I could barely hear myself think.

All in all it was as good, if not better, than I had expected.

A special mention has to be made of the support act COG…any rock band that can cover Open Up by Leftfield is worth a listen.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2005 at 3:08 am and is filed under Parochial Delight, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.