Concert Review - Mel Parsons - Auckland - 6th June 2025

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Mel Parsons Live in Auckland - Photo Credit Ginny Cocks

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Review By: Faith Hamblyn

Artist/Band: Mel Parsons

Venue/City: Tuning Fork, Auckland, New Zealand

Date of Event: Friday 6th June 2025

Lyttelton’s Mel Parsons played The Tuning Fork last night to a hip, sporadically cowboy-booted and -hatted crowd. She spoke about being the bridesmaid to New Zealand’s music awards, but she was critically acclaimed for the album I know of hers, 2015’s ‘Drylands’, and I’m keen to know how those tracks sound live, and how she has evolved since. Back then she sounded like Alison Krauss, which is already a heady peak to have reached.

Opening with ‘Offer Down’ from ‘Sabotage,’ they sounded assured, a tight band on a Post High Slide tour. They continued with ‘Carry On’ from ‘Slow Burn’, and you can hear the theme of resilience through trials – a rich theme in country music, especially alt country.
By ‘Brick By Brick’, they were up to their unreleased material, and it had a twang like The Shadows, thanks to Josh Logan’s surf guitar. It’s a touch of Americana, but ‘Yeah, nah’ appears in the lyrics, so it still sounds like home.

By ‘Hoping for Rain’ from ‘Sabotage’, I can hear Mel now sounds more like Gillian Welch, which is fantastic – a swoop to her voice that makes the music yearning, wistful, like homesickness. But it’s when they hit the run of their unreleased material that I heard songwriting reminiscent of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, who I loved seeing at The Tuning Fork in years past. Parsons sounds sweet, in love with love, but there’s sadness now, and long roads travelled.

Minor-key unreleased track ‘Grain By Grain’ reminds me of Isbell’s ‘Yvette’, heartbreaking and relentless. You can’t dance to the hard times, but the catharsis is surely why we keep listening to the stories when they come to town, like ‘Little Sadness’ from Sabotage. New track ‘Be Here Now’ sounds like Gillian Welch in an introspective mood, and it’s in the reflection we recognise ourselves.

Having listened to ‘Driving Man’ from Drylands earlier in the day, I found that live, now, it sounded like Joni Mitchell, with a cry in the voice and echoes of Canada’s big sky country. The skipping drumbeat sounds like a driving train, the cars clicking on the steady rails. ‘Far Away’ sounded live like a woman escaping over the Southern US border – a celebration.

‘Glass Heart’ had the same kind of delivery, the sound of country with a folk heart, a strong woman but with the fragility we all have, and she sang it and held us all captivated vocally. ‘Don’t Leave The Light On’ is unreleased and haunting, confessional; the sound of dark times that form a mantra, the ringing of a warning bell. Emotionally, her new material might embody the low point of the post high slide, but musically it has weight, it sounds true and it resonates, like the best country does.

‘Post High Slide’ has echoes of David Gray’s ‘This Year’s Love’, the seesaw of the high and low times, the faltering steps taken. ‘Circling The City’ from Sabotage has the great refrain ‘I am done, I am done; please remember me – I used to be fun’. If that doesn’t sum up the discombobulation of a post-high slide, I don’t know what does.

‘Alberta Sun’ from Drylands sounded like Michelle Shocked, lost in the far reaches of civilisation. It’s reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, as you’d expect from being written in Canada, but there’s a sadness and darkness to the post-high slide that Mitchell tended to reach only in her most beautifully despondent musings. Mel Parsons, strong and deep on the hard ground after the high, might be ready to finally take that top New Zealand country music prize now.

Guitar - Josh Logan
Bass - Aaron Stewart
Drums - Jed Parsons

 Set 1
Offer Down
Carry On
Brick By Brick
Hoping For Rain
Grain By Grain
Little Sadness
Be Here Now
Driving Man
Far Away

Set 2
Glass Heart
Don't Leave the Light On
Non Communicado
Post High Slide
Circling the City
5432
Alberta Sun
Just Cause

Encore
Don't Wait
I Got the Lonely

Mel Parsons NZ/AUS Post High Slide Tour 2025

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