Fringe Frolics

It’s New Zealand Fringe Festival time again, and for the third year I’ve volunteered to help out. Nicola is no longer volunteering as she is now an active participant, with her band.

This year, I have been rostered exclusively at Hannah Playhouse, one of the larger venues for the Fringe, and therefore inclined to have events that will attract a bigger audience; so not so much the weird, quirky shows that are the essence of the festival. Next year I’ll ask if I can get a mix of venues so that I can see some of the odder offerings.

The first show I saw was Nicola’s band, Sven Olsen’s Brutal Canadian Love Saga, or The Svens as they are more commonly called. They were again playing at Newtown Community Centre. I say “Nicola’s band” but she is a viola player in the string section, so perhaps she’s not the actual leader of the pack. They played their usual selection of songs about life in Wellington and New Zealand, with backdrops that are an integral part of the show. 

My first gig at Hannah Playhouse was Antonio!, billed as “a queer punk pirate musical starring Shakespeare’s ultimate love interest”, a reference to the fact that Shakespeare has a character of this name in four plays. This is a romp through those works, with the conceit that they are in fact the same person, and Shakespeare was in love with him.

The following week was a sell-out performance of The Spinoff: The Fold Live, New Zealand’s biggest (only?) media podcast, broadcast live from the theatre with two guests, also from NZ media. How interested am I in the behind-the-scenes goings-on in New Zealand’s media world? Not very. I was allocated the mezzanine and balcony section for this show, which is normally closed as not needed, but apparently enough people are interested in this subject to use it. The crowd for this show was noticeably more mature than is usual for Fringe gigs.

Nicola came along to my third gig, Tecuani, as she had a previous engagement at Te Papa. This show was a Mexican dance show revolving around colonialism, human sacrifice, gods, ghosts, and other shit like that. 

The following night we went to see a show that we’d actually bought tickets for – The Fabulous Fabelinskys, at Te Auaha. This is a combination of circus and play, with the story centred on a family of three women who’ve just lost the patriarch and main performer of their circus act. It follows their trials, particularly at the hands of the nefarious circus-owner who exploits them; interspersed with demonstrations of their acts – hoops and harness, high ropes, and a clown, with a sword-swallowing finale. Does what it says on the tin, and probably the best thing that I’ve seen this festival. 

My final show was Hausdown, which is a Bridgerton-esque house party at a country estate. There are various shenanigans between the guest before they finally all come out and admit that the boys are in love with the boys, and the girls are in love with the girls. Enthusiastically performed, the actors camp it up in period costumes and generally have fun.

 

Hutt Sounds

Avid readers of this blog (I imagine this is all of you) will recall that we went to Hutt Sounds last year to see Nik Kershaw and The Human League. Naturally, we were agog to find out which Eighties legends would be playing this year, and as soon as it was announced I was on to it to get earlybird tickets, because this year’s line-up includes Tom Bailey (formerly Thompson Twins) and OMD, I mean, OMG! It’s OMD! I’d been hoping to see them for a number of years, ever since they announced they’d be coming to New Zealand in 2020 with Simple Minds – a gig that was ultimately cancelled due to pandemia. 

Last year we made the mistake of missing the beginning because we weren’t that interested in the support acts. A mistake, not because we should’ve seen them, but because we found it difficult to find somewhere to put our picnic seats.

Yes, you bring your own seating to this event. It’s held at Brewtown in Upper Hutt, which has a handy field attached to it for events such as this. The day is aimed squarely at an older audience, with Eighties legends headlining, and at our age we can’t be standing around in a field for hours on end. The audience is arranged with standing at the front, then picnic blankets, low-back seating, and high-backed seating at the rear. As we’d set out in good time we found a good location near the front of the high seat area.

The afternoon kicked off at 3pm with The Narcs, a kiwi band of the Eighties. Clearly some of the audience were there for them, too, but I’ve never heard of them. They’ve also not committed any of the oeuvre to compact disc either, so I’m unlikely to hear their music again. They made a decent enough sound.

 Next cab off the rank was Diesel, who I have heard of, and even have a CD by. They hail from the Netherlands, and again, make a good rocky sound, without being particularly memorable.

 

Third was local Upper Hutt boy Jon Stevens, former singer of Noiseworks, an Aussie band who had some success in the Eighties and early Nineties. After the death of Michael Hutchence he became lead singer of INXS for around three years, before leaving to continue to pursue his own career again. The set consisted of early solo work, Noiseworks songs, interspersed every other song by a classic banger from INXS which got everyone going. 

The sun was beginning to come down in the sky as Tom Bailey took to the stage with his band – keyboardist/cellist, drummer and bass guitarist. Bailey also helped out with additional synths, percussion and guitar, where needed. They performed a set of Thompson Twins songs, all of which you know, and one cover version – a pretty good rendition of Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer. Here’s the set list. 

Tom Bailey would have been worth it as a headline act, but wait – there’s more! Eighties legends, tunesmiths and all-round innovators Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD to you) were the headline act. Before they took the stage, Evolution Of Species played over the PA, accompanied by a video on the big screen at the back of the stage. This track is the dreaded “N-word” – yes, it’s New Material, from their 2023 release Bauhaus Staircase. As they took to the stage, though, it became apparent that that was almost the only one, and the rest were absolute foot-tappers from the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties that had populated the charts years ago. Starting at the very beginning – 1979’s Electricity and 1980’s Messages, their first two singles, they then followed with hit after hit. They managed to slip another “new” song in – History of Modern from their recent (checks notes) 2010 album of the same name. You can find the full set list here. 

They finished up, inevitably, with Enola Gay, before quitting the stage at 9pm due to the curfew restriction at the venue. They left with a promise not to leave it quite so long before returning to New Zealand – their last gig in Wellington was at the Town Hall in 1986. Hopefully they’ll be back again.