Grand Opening Party at Double Whammy. With Dick Move, Dbldbl. Greco Romank, Na Noise and FILTH. Brand new venue is christened with a sold-out evening.
Close to twenty years since all this started with a boutique Wine Cellar, the now iconic music venue has had a makeover, extensive refurbishing and cosmetic surgery, and delivered kicking and screaming a new baby displaying a healthy and noisy set of lungs.
Catch the origin story with Rohan Evans here.
The Whammy Backroom has become the big stage out front. The Wine Cellar front has become the back of the room.
Long room, low ceiling with the large aluminium ducting being a visual feature. Like the sadly departed Anthology Lounge, but the space is widened.
It was a Herculean effort to get it ready to open tonight. Many musicians volunteered their time and energy, along with the professional contractors
This informal Wrecking Crew helped set up the (Four) Walls of Sound.
There were photos published on the RNZ website early Friday morning which showed a mountain of work that needed to be done.
Most impressed when I walked in.
The joint was rockin’/ A goin’ round and round/ Yeah reelin’ and a rockin’/ What a crazy sound. (Courtesy of Chuck Berry).
Lucy Macrae bass player for Dick Move, is one of the current owners of the business. Great credit to the management team to get it ready for this evening.
A total contrast to the bureaucrats who supposedly run, but mis-manage this city. Whenever there is a big concert or entertainment venue here, you can guarantee that Auckland Transport (AT) will make a complete cluster of it.
Dick Move take centre spot tonight. Lucy Suttor is the recognisable lead singer. She has a hair style like Roger Daltrey (The Who) in his heyday, and she can rage in similar fashion. The only thing she doesn’t do is swing the microphone like a lasso.
The rest. Harriet Ellis, Luke Boys and Justin Rendall.
Forty minutes of all-out Punk attack music with seventeen songs.
Two guitars emphasise the meshed monolithic sound. The drummer approaches the speed of Metal bands.
Several times the bass guitar looks like she is double picking like Dick Dale.
Several people comment that it all sounds the same. That is the beauty of it.
They are as relentless as old school punks Crass, but they have a sense of humour.
Suttor can scream and yell over the top like Henry Rollins in Black Flag. Occasionally lyrics are thrown up out over the maelstrom. Every night is Ladies Night! Pissing! (for half a minute).
Her voice is not too far away from Exene Cervenka, of the legendary Los Angeles Punk band X. Girl group screeches going mental.
We all recognise signature song Dick Move, significantly slower in tempo.
They are just as good as I last saw them, opening for Foo Fighters at Mt Smart Stadium in January this year. Ferocious up close in a black-walled basement.
Dbldbl is Auckland based Rap artist Liam Dargaville.
He has a smooth practiced flow, at a sedate pace and appears observational in his lyrics. He could break out with stand-up comedy at any time, it appears.
Asking to be spoon fed/ Loose threads/ Dead flesh. The song appears to be roving around a convenience store.
Backing tracks are minimalist rhythms with lots of space. At one point there were cymbal riffs like the early Schoolly D.
Electronic Techno beats combined with Public Enemy siren wails, and he busts out some energetic dance moves.
Let’s slip some nice neo-Soul tenor vocals on one track. Jumps down into the crowd to stoke up the groove.
Stuttering timing towards the end of the set which may have been due to sound desk issues.
Bigger space for the sound desk to adjust the music to, and it is full. But the quality was admirable on opening night, and standards of the past were met.
Grecco Romank are an alternative Electronica trio, bubbling up from the underground scene in Auckland.
They formed in Year Zero 2020, of the Control virus outbreak.
Damian Golfinopoulus is a film maker and editor, and musically he specialises in nightmare psychedelia.
Billie Fee is a classically trained singer and Mikey Sperring plays drums and drives a bus.
They deliver an intriguing set of drone Electronica, which can push up to rave party levels.
Fee can wail and yell in an unsettling and edgy manner which can approach Diamanda Gelais levels of provocation.
Voices electronically modulated. Deep bass drops. Dance grooves which get brutal and unbreakable.
At one stage Fee blows into mutant melodica type instrument. One coming out of David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch movie.
Compelling music and worthy of more attention. Information is scant on this trio.
Na Noise opened the show, but they gave way to the Eden Park test match, where the All Blacks annihilated the Argentine Pumas in the first 30 minutes.
Red Raven photographer Leonie Moreland captured their performance.
The long party ended with FILTH, which I understand to be a collective of DJs, founded by JessB and HalfQueen, and embracing the LGBQTi extended family of artists.
Double Whammy got off to an ideal start. A great sold-out launch on a stormy night where the streets above had battened down the hatches.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Na Noise
DblDbl
Dick Move
Grecco Romank