Day 7: Te Whanganui-a-Tara
Welcome
Yesterday we played a show in the Great Hall of the Dominion Museum in Whanganui a Tara.
I returned for the second day to Akin for breakfast, the café with a name that I still couldn’t think of a pun for but an establishment that I now trusted to provide me with the nutrition to get me through a day of travelling and performing. Moving into the savoury section of the menu I ordered the Eggs Benedict - two poached eggs served on Grizzly milk loaf, covered in sriracha hollandaise and micro-greens, and served with cheddar hash browns and sauteed mushrooms. This plate of food was on my table in five minutes, a pace that I thought was blisteringly fast for a busy Saturday morning service. I dined in peace, sipping a clean brew of black filter coffee and enjoying a solidly built table that possessed an attribute rarely found in café furniture, the ability to take the weight of a leaning arm without rocking and spilling your drink.
At 10am the members of the touring party were assembled outside The Church Pub where we had left our equipment for safe keeping after the show. We attempted to load the van but were waylaid by the intimidating bulk of Winston, the venue guard dog, who thoroughly vetted each individual before carrying out an inspection of our vehicle.
A couple of hours later and we were on the tarmac at Christchurch Airport boarding another puddle jumper, a twin turboprop aircraft that carried us north towards the capital, a short and smooth flight that provided magnificent sightings of the Southern Alps for those lucky enough to be in a port side window seat. The touchdown at Wellington Airport was surprisingly gentle given the reputation of that landing strip, and we found ourselves disembarking into as fine a day as you would ever find in this city at the bottom of Aotearoa’s North Island.
Anthony picked us up in a Toyota Hiace van and we drove the short distance into the city where we found our venue, a slightly unusual space for us as it was on the campus of Massey University. The Dominon Museum Building was completed in 1936, an impressive and imposing building of reinforced concrete and a fine example of Stripped Classical Architecture, set on a hill and overlooking Central Wellington. Once home to the Nation Museum Collection it now houses a university campus and the great hall has recently been transformed into an events space with standing room for one thousand. Carpets cover the marble floors and the walls have been draped with tall curtains in an effort to remove a significant reverberance. Lighting trusses were hanging high above the hall, and a number of workers had been busy erecting a stage at one end, and suspending two tall arrays of speakers for Gabe to amplify us through.
We were pleased to find everything already up by the capable team of stage hands. There were amps and drums ready to go and a neat line of microphone stands waiting to be placed. Everyone settled in and it wasn’t long before we began making noise, soon discovering that whoever had been in charge of taming the acoustics of this room knew what they were doing. It was remarkably calm for such a long and tall space, a realisation that brought relief and excitement about the show to come. We made our way through an easy and uneventful soundcheck and then headed upstairs to enjoy the comforts of our green room, another huge and handsome space that housed the tea rooms back in the building’s museum days. Of all the green rooms we have inhabited this was the one that we could have played cricket in, but alas the tour bat had not made this voyage with us and we were confined to the pursuit of eating nibbles.
Showtime arrived and Dateline took to the stage, this five-piece led by former Beths touring drummer Katie Everingham who is herself a fine songwriter, singer, and guitarist. Jonathan Pearce recently went into the studio with this band, recording and mixing a brilliant album of songs, many of which were performed to the thousand-strong crowd in the Great Hall last night. With the lighting rig fired up everything looked the part, and the atmosphere was perfect for a rock show. This Wellington band sounded tight and exciting and were a joy to watch, a fantastic vehicle for this talented songwriter to take on the road with her newest collection of tunes.
A reunion with an old friend: Katie orchestrates a compositionally-pleasing catchup with Liz and Jon.
Dateline play the Great Hall.
At 9:40pm the intro music went on and shortly after that there were four clicks from Tristan’s drumsticks, signalling the beginning of our set. We began working through a setlist of seventeen songs that are comfortable and familiar but still keep us on the seat of our pants every time we perform them. The room looked amazing from up on stage, a sea of fans, many singing along, and many punctuating their favourite musical moments with raised arms and various hand gestures. The set finished and we pretended to leave but then came back and encored, playing an extra two songs which are actually on the setlist but still a secret since we keep that document carefully hidden from the audience. That was the end of things for our Saturday show. We waved goodbye for the penultimate time on this tour and headed up to our greenroom for a drink and a wind-down.
It’s always a treat when I get given show photos to share and last night Nishikawa Ryo was on the scene and captured these beautiful moments.
