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By Daryl Habraken

Artist: Stan Walker

Date: Friday 13th September 2019

Venue: Auckland Town Hall

Stan Walker, the man with a soulful voice that hops genres as easily as breathing. A spiritual presence that only man of faith who has experienced adversity such as his has the mana to carry. Those were my thoughts as I sat in the Auckland Town Hall last night, the lumber and stone walls are the only materials that are able to reverberate every nuance in such a talent.

The support acts were solid, young Niko Walters from Mt Eden kicked things off, slightly green but a talent to look out for. He was followed by a few young up and comers who stood up and claimed the opportunity to be on the stage with solid stage confidence. It’s good to see true young talent given a shot.

Stan takes the stage with a bang, the sound mix and music arrangements are tuned to maximise the voice over anything, and he cuts through like a hot knife through butter. Reggae, soul, funk, massive cross-genre appeal.

The crowd is varied. All ages and cultures. Within three songs everyone was one their feet swaying and fully immersed in the show.

There’s a touching tribute to the Christchurch shootings bringing a sobering moment to the experience which is followed by a tribute to mothers with Thank You.

The ballads continue with the climax being Purple Rain, reminiscent of his Australian Idol performance, the crowd sung in fine voice.

I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Stan W. In the beginning I thought he was just another over produced pop act pulled from the machine that is reality TV, but over the years he has found a passion and identity that is fully on display in this tour. He’s broken the pop mould and embraced his culture in full to bring solid entertainment from the heart and I highly, highly recommend basking in the passion.