Concert Review: South for Winter - Hastings - 24th January 2025

SOUTH FOR WINTER - PHOTO CREDIT ANDREW CALDWELL

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Review By: Rob Harbers

Artist/Band: South for Winter

Venue/City: Common Room, Hastings, New Zealand

Date of Event: Friday 24th January 2025

Bringing their eclectic mix of Aotearoa and America to Heretaunga’s Common Room, South For Winter captivated a criminally undersized audience at the city’s reborn home of live music.
With the Common Room only being 5 weeks into its second phase of life, a continuation that some feared it might not get, there’s a spiritual rebuilding under way in this hallowed venue, following the physical one that saw it being closed for some months. The wairua is realigning and re-energising, the pause having allowed for a period of refreshment and reflection. As such, events like this perform a vital function in resetting the vibe, and South For Winter played their part perfectly with their beautiful harmonic interplay and borderline corvidian fascination with different genres, as reflected in the diversity of their material.

The nucleus of the band is husband and wife Nick and Dani Stone, from Otautahi and Colorado respectively, who met while volunteering in Peru. Fleshing out the musical palette is Alex Stradal, who they met in Nashville and quickly became an integral part of the vision. Together they create a sound that drifts far and wide, while all loosely within the broad genre of what I like to call “Amerikiwiana”-an apt description in this case! From almost ethereal to chunky and rocking, with topics ranging from whimsical anthropomorphism to dark murder ballads, there’s likely to be elements to draw in a wide spectrum of listeners. With 28 gigs packed in to this 5 week schedule, there’ll be ample opportunity for them to gather more followers around the traps, a very likely prospect on the strength of this outing!

Many of the songs performed are from the recently released sophomore album ‘Sea and Sky’(this being the album release tour and all!) an early highlight was ‘Something in the Stars’, an origin story of sorts for a band with such wide roots. An extended guitar intro then led in to ‘Whispers in the Trees’, a contemplative speculation on environmental issues. In an effort to support the reconstructive efforts of the venue, by way of encouraging bar patronage, the overall performance was split into 3 sets, the first of these being closed out with murder ballad ‘Underneath the Blood Moon’ inspired by the historic practice of committing women to asylums for such crimes as reporting domestic abuse, and similar misdemeanors. Maybe not so historic, depending on how far America’s attempts at bringing ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to life!

The second set featured more such dark musings, leavened by lighter moments such as ‘How the Mountain’, the song composed by Dani and Nick for their wedding, and a cover of ‘I See Fire’, with the enhancement against the original of not having to see the smug face of the ginger muppet! Also featured in this set was the ghost story ‘Souls Lost in the Dark’, inspired by the ‘True Detective’ series, and which the band has hopes of being included in the next season of the show. ‘Southern Lights’ used Auroras as an analogy for emergence from hibernation and lockdowns, while ‘Ten Black Crows’ saw a return of the murder ballad, in time to close out set 2 and set the stage for the final outing.

Set 3 kicked off in a lively fashion, the previous gradual increase in intensity having led to this point. Particularly demonstrating this louder iteration of the sound was ‘Mountains You Move’ with it’s theme of compassion complemented nicely by the neon sign on the wall of the venue stating “Don’t be a dick!”. Serendipitous symmetry or what? This was followed by the “Emo song” ‘Back in Gold’, admitted by Dani to be on something of a “trial run”, not having been played live many times. Sounded pretty damn good to these ears, at least! Following this was another cover, this time of ‘Royals’, before pulling the pace right back with the “song formed by accident”, ‘Stone’, which was explained and introduced as having been conceived as a last minute bit of extra quiet and chill texture for the first album, and turning out to be the one with the highest amount of listens-there’s that serendipity again! We were then treated to a piece introduced as a “Killer guitar instrumental that’ll knock your socks off”, namely ‘Into The Eye’ from first album ‘Luxumbra’- I have to say it certainly lived up to it’s billing! The penultimate item was the aforementioned bit of anthropomorphism, being the tale of the forbidden love between a beaver and a sparrow (which I unfortunately didn’t catch the name of), before closing out the night with their “happiest song ever written”, dedicated to audiences far and wide, the beautiful “Always You”. A love song from performers to those who keep them going.

And with the love having been shared all around, it was time to wrap up. With the promise of numerous more dates on this tour, and the tendency, in the longer term, for the band to be true to its name and head south for winter, there will be many opportunities for you to see them for yourself. But you’d be better off for doing so as soon as you can, if only for the cachet you’ll have as more people discover them, and you can proudly play your early-adopter card! Do it!!

South for Winter Tour PR 2025

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