More FM Winery Tour - Matakana, Friday 4th February
As we arrived at the picturesque Ascension vineyard, a light drizzle was setting in - overcast skies and gloomy predictions from the MetService
indicated a damp night lay ahead of us. Still, we gamely settled in with a small but growing crowd, staked out our area to the left of the stage, and settled in under a blanket with a bottle of wine to await the first act. You can't argue with the setting, the vineyard has won several awards as a venue, and justly so, it's a great space.
As the crowd trickled in, we were kept entertained by one of the hosts on the PA, reassuring us the rain wasn't anything to worry about, and doing his best to set the sound engineer up with a girlfriend - unsuccessfully I have to report, but hopefully he'll find someone by the end of the tour!
The rain came to a stop just before Midnight Youth took the stage, and we were away. The audience was a real cross section - more the sort of crowd you'd see at Christmas in the Park than a rock concert.It was fairly apparent that the majority were there to see Brooke Fraser, but Midnight Youth pulled no punches, and even the older members of the audience seemed to appreciate their brand of NZ rock. The mix was good, if a little heavy on the drums - which did sound fantastic I have to say. It must be a thankless job to be a lighting designer tasked with putting together a plot for an outdoor concert in the daylight - but they flashed away valiantly, though to little effect.
After enough of a break to allow the crowd to appreciate the variety of food stalls and copious quantities of wine available, Jason Kerrison took the stage with Opshop. While his patter was a little hit and miss (asking 'the humans' in the crowd to wave their arms was a little odd), you can't deny that his voice is amazing, and they delivered another crowd pleasing set, striking the right balance between the old favourites while introducing some new material.
It's a tribute to both Opshop and Midnight Youth that when Brooke Fraser finally arrived on the stage, it felt like the continuation of a genuinely professional series of performances. While the production levels were obviously lifted for the headline artist, (it was dark by this stage, and the lighting designer had something to work with), and she had a significantly larger band, the other two bands matched her's for musicianship and polish.
Brooke's awkward charm was on full display, and she delivered all of the hits the crowd had come to see, including Arithmetic, the absence of which in the main set reassured us that there would indeed be an encore! Jason Kerrison and Jeremy Redmore joined her for a rendition of "Let it Be", which Brooke's band had obviously rehearsed, even if the two blokes hadn't! They carried it off with charm and aplomb, despite the hastily scrawled lyric sheets they were both clutching - Brooke made no bones about taping her's to the keyboard!
All in all it was a hugely successful night, the rain never really got started, and there was a distinct festival atmosphere throughout. All three acts were highly polished and provided a clever balance of the old and new, and it was great to see that local music can draw such a supportive and varied crowd.
Tagged as : More FM Winery Tour | Brooke Fraser | Opshop | Midnight Youth | concert review |
