Cross Street Music Festival and we join the Lonely-Hearts Club and Dear Prudence. Won’t you come out to play? Grimy Street, behind iconic Karangahape Road, transforms into a boutique play area of music, art installations, dark rave parties, DJs (spinnin’ a set in my mind), exotic foods and various intoxicants.
The Beatles promised a revolution of consciousness through Art in 1967. They placed a huge bomb at the end of that album. We are here for a good time rather than a long time.
There has been a lot going on this weekend and Cross Street Festival appears to be a way to bathe in the glory and unwind.
Two big P!NK concerts at Eden Park. Had to breach a river of humanity wearing big pink hats all heading uptown on foot. Last night that included a Warriors rugby league game too. Walking is the only reliable way in this city. What you can rely on is the public transport to close, break down or fall apart. Every time there are sizeable events in this city.
The three bands I caught their entire sets for, define the mood. 21st century Pop music which has many underground roots and tendrils to that infamous Summer of Love.
In the Southern Hemisphere it was the Winter of Love.
Balu Brigada performed an impressive show at the Hollywood theatre in Avondale last winter. Balu Brigada – Hollywood Theatre, 25 August 2023: Review
They called it Bop Fiasco and it was hard and fast Dance Pop with many elements stitched into the mix. Disco, hard dance-oriented Power Pop filled with Funk and R’nB’ hooks.
Effervescent music which fizzes and pops and all underpinned by rhythms made to shake loose the spine.
A band of brothers, originally from Auckland. Four on stage tonight. There is Charles Beasley and Henry Beasley. The third brother Pierre Beasley may be playing keyboards tonight.
They grew up with parents who were artists, and they were immersed in music from an early age.
Picking up a contract with Atlantic Records and developing their sound in Los Angeles and New York.
Opening song Number One sets the tone for their set. Indie Pop with a hard and insistent rhythm. The drums are dominant and drive each song.
Find a Way is distinguished by a bassline that Bernard Edwards of Chic would have been proud of.
2good is dance music as a Pop drone.
Sometimes they can get raucous and chant like the Beastie Boys. Every so often a startling Rock guitar riff is laid out.
A band of brothers peddling infectious groove beats.
Princess Chelsea as a band are theatrical and literary Pop, with a little Goth in them. Certainly, in the way Chelsea Nikkel, lead singer and multi-instrumentalist presents herself.
The album launch for Everything is Going to be Alright, at the Neck of Woods venue over the road, was a highlight of last year. Princess Chelsea at Neck of the Woods 19 October 2023: Review
A lot of it was developed on Waiheke Island, where Nikkel was dealing with mental health issues.
The resulting album is full of light and kaleidoscopic colour, but the dark shadows still lurk. Gothic Indie Pop.
Nikkel does cultivate a look that combines Marilyn Manson and Betty Boop. Alluring and intriguing but she can be witchy and a little possessed on stage.
The band starts with We Kick Around. Bass guitar anchors the hypnotic drone guitars.
Close the set with The Forest. Sixties Garage Grunge as the guitars sound dirtier and the singer cuts loose
Those two are from the above-named album. In between we hear music that can get theatrical like the Dresden Dolls, to unsettling and minimalist like the cult New Wave band Young Marble Giants from decades ago.
A song like I Don’t Know You could be mutated Brill Building song for a Sixties Girl Group.
Fathe and the Sweetos bring uplifting African Pop music to Cross Street.
Fathe Tesfamariam was born in the Sudan and grew up in Ethiopia.
He has a big ensemble up there with him. The keyboard artist also plays trumpet. Two saxophones, percussionist (Eli Dobbyn), drummer (John Murray), bass guitar (Seb Soto) and a female trio of backing singers who generate a lot of the dance energy.
West African Pop is a heady hybrid mixture which sounds like what Paul Simon did with Gracelands.
There is the Ju-Ju music of King Sunny Ade, and the polyrhythmic beats combined with melodic keyboards and guitars. Tasty Jazz licks are used judiciously by lead guitar Jamal Hassan-Hussein.
They lay on a traditional dance which has a Skatalites’ style horn section fronting a steady metronome drive from the engine room.
My friends you so good to me starts one song. The drums lead it out as the bass player lays on some heavy Funk, making it an irresistible dance groove.
A lot of warmth and good times means Chic with an African makeover. Fathe and the Sweetos – Galatos, 29 September 2023: Review
There was some Rap and Indie Rock I heard wandering around amongst friends and acquaintances.
It is a long night, and the mood is mellow and chilled.
One interesting band which caught my attention was Mirror Ritual.
From Wellington and they used to be called Transistor.
The guitarist and lead singer, Lochie Noble, looks like a cool version of British Mods from the Sixties. Dressed in black with a hairstyle cribbed from the Rolling Stones when Brian Jones was setting the fashion standard.
He looks the part of what they describe themselves as, Dream Fuzz.
A lot of it is a straight solid rhythm groove.
They can emulate Prog, with a flute weaving in and out of the rhythm attack. Keyboards play celestial tones.
Noble has a fey, affected vocal style. With his guitar is content to play behind the rhythm but will lay on a few jangles from time to time.
Could not get to see acts like Geoff Ong and Kedu Carlo. Check out the photo gallery.
Cross Street Music Festival, with its main acts, pitched us into the fervour and serious good time dance energy of Indie Pop at its brightest.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland and Isabella Rose Young
Carousel of Fathe and the Sweetos and Princess Chelsea
Carousel of Te-KuraHuia, OD, Mirror Ritual and Balu Brigada