Sunshine and music trumps doom and gloom
A splash of colour at the Summer Concert. Photos: Chris Marshall and Penny Wilson
Given the preceding week of weather, organisers of the Greenstone Summer Concert Tour series will be thanking their stars the rain largely held off for a successful opening show in Taupō.
Several skiffs of rain didn’t dampen the crowd spirit, with audience members occasionally having to don ponchos or coats for a few minutes to then remove them as the sun came out.
While numbers looked slightly down on the best crowds of previous years, with some operators blaming the general squeeze on discretionary spending, thousands of locals and visitors poured into the Riverside Amphitheatre to enjoy a line-up starring rock legends Iggy Pop, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Hoodoo Gurus and ZED.
Opening local act Fairly Obvious was also a hit presenting a driving, jam-packed set that warmed up the crowd.
One avid Hoodoo Gurus fan, Michael Wray from Wellington, was particularly pleased he managed to get a copy of the band’s set list from off stage.
Wray said he discovered the band in the 1980s in the United Kingdom.
“But they never toured there.”
It wasn’t until he moved to New Zealand that he finally got to attend a concert and has now attended three in the last five years.
He was buzzing after the group’s performance, having been in the front row throughout the Gurus set.
Hoping to souvenir a guitar pick from the band – as he had at a previous concert – this time he had to be content with the list of hits they’d run through.
While last act Iggy Pop entertained the crowd with a few jokes at his own expense – on why he wouldn’t be able to accompany anyone on a camping holiday (brain too fried), it was Joan Jett who took the lead in getting political.
Digressing briefly in her performance, Jett expressed dismay at the way the United States was being run by the current “trucked up” government.
She said she wanted to take a moment to say something about what was going on in her country – before announcing the song ‘Change the World’.
“We don't accept the brutality, the lies, and the loss of our simplest pleasures… many of us in the States have been and will continue working hard to mitigate and lessen all the damage done.
“And we'll keep at it.”
In a release following the concert Amanda Calvert, chief executive officer of Greenstone Entertainment, said: “After 16 years, Taupō has become our premiere event. It is always a pleasure to host the Summer Concert Tour in such an exceptional location, and this year’s line-up of legends of rock was met with an enthusiastic response from audience.”
The final two concerts in the series are an evening show at Auckland’s Spark Arena on Thursday, January 29 (which doesn’t include the Hoodoo Gurus) followed by Three Parks Outdoor Arena at Lake Wanaka on Saturday, January 31.
The company was reporting earlier this week that tickets were still available for both shows.
