The Summer Concert Tour 2024 was presided over by the Weather Gods in Hamilton. But Simple Minds and Texas, who thought this was just a barmy afternoon in Glaars-gore, danced in defiance. Collective Soul said it was Atlanta air-conditioning, and Pseudo Echo could be guilty of bringing it with them from Australia.
A big crowd, ready to picnic and party, had gathered as the gates opened. It was a stormy grey day when the atmosphere was charged with the invigorating energy of negatively charged ions.
Bigger than the 13,000 plus from Taupo the day before.
White Chapel Jak played the curtain-raiser as the rain started to pick up. New Zealand’s premier covers band with the distinctive voice of Bonnie Hurunui. They set the scene for a Sunday afternoon of big and familiar songs.
Pseudo Echo play to medium heavy rain. The immediate impact is the stunning sound quality which lifts everyone’s spirit. For all the acts that follow.
Stranger In Me, written by founder, lead singer and guitarist Brian Canham is immediately arresting, and lays the gauntlet down for the rest of the acts to follow.
All popping and bursting synth keyboard riffs. This was the classic sound of dance music, inspired in the wake of the Punk explosion which in turn detonated New Wave.
The electronic dance music scene and the New Romantics which included Ultravox and Duran Duran.
Joy Division is also included here in representing the dark energy and dark matter of New Wave.
His Eyes, Destination Unknown and A Beat for You all roll out, sounding like the original records with the energy levels turned to high.
Canham started it all when he was 7 years old, he claims. The rest are newer, having only been there over the last decade. He acknowledges the large number of Boomers there, like me, and commends the younger crowd of having been brainwashed appropriately by their parents.
It was interesting listening to them without sight. Huddled under an umbrella, behind the sound marquee. Not seeing the stage and watching people moving about in Brownian Motion, like the rain was carrying electrical energy.
Lightning did eventually hit, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Coming out of the Shelter from the Storm, and they are a six-piece band which includes a female backing singer.
The keytar player features on a sizzling and punchy version of Nutbush City Limits, written by the legendary and misogynistic Izear Ike Turner.
A cover of Real Life’s Send Me an Angel is similarly exhilarating. They are bringing the dance groove to the festival.
They extend out on Funky Town, as you would expect. A cover of Lipps Inc, which they made their own. Synth hooks aplenty, and the guitars play Rock riffs, with the drummer unloading a solo as well.
Collective Soul are a surprise. Somehow, they passed me by, this hard rocking Southern band from Atlanta, Georgia, who formed in 1992.
Ed Roland is the charismatic lead singer and resident loon. Long shaggy hair, pink jacket, and green trousers, he acts as outrageously as I would imagine David Johansen did for the New York Dolls.
There is his younger brother Dean Roland on rhythm guitar, and Will Turpin bass. The original members.
Johnny Rabb on drums and Jessie Triplett on lead guitar complete the current line-up.
Ed Roland did attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston. The legendary centre for American music, where such luminaries as Bill Monroe also attended. Given a special Presidential honour for defining Bluegrass.
He picks up a 12-string acoustic guitar to assist the rocking nature of Shine. Well, Roger McGuinn had to use an electric Rickenbacker. Let your light shine down. He attacks it with some venom, like a demented folkie. The long hair and flowery hat complete the look.
Precious Declaration defines their style somewhat. Electric lead guitar wobbling in similar fashion to the rockin’ Joe Walsh before he Eagled it.
They emphasise the surging heavy crunch riffs of Rock rather than Rock’n’roll boogie of other Southern brethren bands like the Allman Brothers or Lynyrd Skynyrd.
There are modified Delta Blues licks here and there.
A cover of AC-DC’s Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap) summarises that in one song. As a singer Ed is sly and blokey like Bon Scott, rather than the leather lungs of Brian Johnson.
Closing song Run. Softer dreamy guitars start. The 12-string is back. A soulful voice also encompassing Folk.
Are these times contagious? / Is there a cure among us? This is not addressed to covid, as it was written long before. Makes it prescient hearing it today.
The soulful nature makes it Americana.
Texas are a Scottish band formed in 1987 and making their debut appearance in New Zealand.
They open with a classic from the first album I Don’t Want a Lover. High quality Power Pop.
Sharleen Spiteri is the brash dynamo singer who fronts Texas. Bass player Johnny McElhorne and guitarist Ally McErlaine, also co-founders.
The rest. Eddie Campbell keyboards, Tony McGovern guitar and Cat Myers drums. All the overseas bands use female drummers except for Collective Soul.
Superstar shines with sparkling laser-like guitar lines and a Tom Petty momentum.
The Conversation shares some of the style of mid-Seventies Fleetwood Mac.
Spiteri has a broad Glaswegian accent. She has the same profane speech and hilarious nature as that other famous Glaswegian, Billy Connolly.
Who was a Folkie to begin with when he played in a Folk Pop band The Humblebums, with Gerry Rafferty.
I can understand the Sharleen, which is like provincial hard-case New Zealand. Spiteri is Maltese, Italian, Irish and German. Far more Euro-centric than Brexit.
Let’s Work it Out. This is Power Pop and a shout out to dance. As life is too short/ You know we gotta work it out.
Continues the dance groove with the ringing guitars on When We are Together.
When she wants to take you from the bad times, she can get soulful with phrasing like the female leads of Motown in the Seventies.
Simple Minds begin with a musical invocation. May we start? It might be to appease the Weather Gods, as the warning has gone out to take down all umbrellas and gazzy-bows.
Gimme Shelter comes to mind. A storm is threatening, but its more a kiss away than a shot away.
They start with Waterfront. The meshed guitars scythe through your head like lasers. A big stadium Rock sound, familiar even though it would be at least twenty years ago that I last heard them in concert.
Come in, come out of the rain. It does hold off as the set kicks in and the large crowd dance in celebration.
Easily the most successful Scottish band in commercial terms, in the Eighties.
They had roots in Punk, as Glaswegians’ Jim Kerr lead vocals, and Charlie Burchill guitars, keyboards, saxophone, first came together in a band called Johnny and the Self Abusers.
Their first album as Simple Minds was Life in a Day (1979).
One of their finest was New Gold Dream (81/82/83/84) from 1982 and the title track shimmers with the meshed guitar and keyboard sound.
The rest of the band. Cherisse Osei, drummer, powers the band’s big monolithic sound. Ged Grimes bass, Gordy Goudie guitar and Sarah Brown backing vocals.
Brown has a powerful soul voice, and she fulfils a similar role to Lisa Fischer or Merry Clayton behind the Rolling Stones.
Songs like I Travel and Love Song build with and endless rhythm riff which becomes a powerful drone.
Their sound can mimic the bagpipes in the hills Like another great group Big Country led by Scotsman Stuart Adamson, until his untimely death.
You hear this at its best on Glittering Prize.
Promised You a Miracle and the guitars cut like crystal.
They were called Post Punk at the time, but their sound was more diverse, and they have deep Folk roots. Which is what I would expect in a band that can sound like pipes in the Highlands.
Belfast Child starts with a guitar twang, but it has a lugubrious vocal. The sound slowly swells and builds. Tribal drums accompany squalls of meshed sound. It also signals the rain getting heavier.
Don’t You (Forget About Me) and the band are on a high. When flashes of lightning appear, the show is stopped immediately by management.
The rain is a deluge, and we are told to head to the arena for safety. Most ignore this and head out towards the entrance gates.
This is starting to look like the biblical flood of last year. When I made it to the gates of Mt Smart Stadium for Elton John before it was all called off.
It’s like déjà vu all over again.
Not at all in the end. We were treated to a wonderful series of performances from Simple Minds, Texas, Collective Soul, and Pseudo Echo. The sound tent deserves special praise.
Everyone was ebullient and happy as we took the long drenching walk out.
Rev. Orange Peel
Tickets for Gibbston Valley Winery Summer Concert, Queenstown (Saturday 3 February) are still available and can be purchased at www.greenstoneentertainment.co.nz or at the gate on the day.
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Simple Minds
Texas
Collective Soul
Pseudo Echo
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