KEY POINTS:
It's a warm, relaxed evening at Manurewa's Villa Maria winery. Happy punters, many showing signs of having sampled the vineyard's wares, cover the slopes of the grass amphitheatre, bumping and swaying to the gravelly tones of Joe Cocker.
Wine-glasses wave, lyrics flow, picnic rugs lie crumpled underfoot. It's
Auckland Anniversary day and 6000 people are here to enjoy the show.
Somewhere on the edge of it all is Brent Eccles. Too jumpy and too busy to sit and watch, he's rushing around with a radio phone, talking to security, counting the gate takings, making sure Cocker has a way to get back to his hotel. He says there's a lot going on that we don't see. If everything looks smooth on the surface, he's done his job.
Eccles has been in the music scene most of his life, but these days live shows are a pleasure he mostly leaves to others. He's had his share of the limelight - he spent almost two decades drumming for Australian hard rockers The Angels. Now the promoter who this year brought us Cocker, Justin Timberlake and The Police prefers to relax at the speedway.
The pony-tailed businessman still loves music, but it's the nuts and bolts of the industry that get him going. He returned to New Zealand in 1999 after 20 years in Australia, where he had worked as a band manager and a booking agent, convinced he could see a gap in the New Zealand touring market. Employed from the outset as the New Zealand face of Australian promotions company Frontier Touring, he used a quiet patch in Frontier's schedule to start a booking agency here.
His first act as a New Zealand booking agent was to create the all-star Tim Finn, Bic Runga and Dave Dobbyn concert tour, a highly successful feat that became his calling card in the New Zealand music scene.
Now, Brent Eccles Entertainment books shows for Finn, Runga, Dobbyn and other home-grown talent like Brooke Fraser and Shihad. The agency's day-to-day running is managed by head agent Peter Campbell and a handful of staff, giving Eccles more time to promote big international shows.
In his spare time, he heads the New Zealand arm of Australian label Liberation Music, home to local talent Liam Finn and Betchadupa, the alt-rock band Finn founded with Eccles' son Matt.
If it sounds like there's a lot going on for Eccles, there is. With Auckland's three Frontier-promoted Justin Timberlake shows grossing $4 million in ticket sales last November, it's fair to say he is part of a burgeoning local trade in live music.
It couldn't have come at a better time for the music business. The much-publicised growth in digital downloads has pushed sales of recorded music steadily down since 2001, yet Eccles says he's amazed by the sheer number of live acts he sees advertised.
"I look at them all and say, 'How can they ever work?' But they usually do."
He should know - while Frontier fights the Australian bidding war to get big-name musicians to Australasia, Eccles is the man who makes it work when they arrive here. His responsibilities range from writing radio ads to hiring venue security, while his wife Helen looks after things like immigration forms and travel.
Eccles credits the opening of Vector Arena in March with boosting ticket sales, by giving New Zealanders the "wow" factor of top international acts. Government policies have also been good for business - Eccles is in no doubt the buoyancy of the local music scene is a direct result of Government funding for recorded music.
Of the big international acts attracted by Vector, Eccles says shows like Timberlake's are "pretty ones" to promote. "I remember coming into the office the morning it went on sale. I was here by myself, and every phone was ringing ... the first show sold out in 7 minutes."
One of the not-so-pretty ones was Christina Aguilera's show, the first Eccles ever booked at Vector. Aguilera cancelled due to sickness at 5pm on the night of the show, leaving Eccles to front up to angry fans. He went on national television telling people they would get their money back, but he's very aware that was no help to the fans who had already travelled from Tauranga, Wellington or Christchurch.
At that point, he says, all he could do was get the message out as fast as he could. "You've just got to keep your head and act as calmly as you can."
"It takes months and months of work to put a show on sale ... to cancel it takes about two emails - one to TV and one to radio - and it's undone."
Eccles freely admits he couldn't do his job if he hadn't been in the industry so long. He learned a lot playing with The Angels, not just from drumming but from the people who looked after the band.
Looking at his job, it's easy to see how experience pays off. One of his less enviable tasks is to guess just how many fans will turn up when a big act comes to town. While Frontier's backing lessens the personal risk ("because it's not my money"), Eccles says he still feels like his reputation is on the line every time.
Right now, quite a lot of Frontier's money is riding on his estimate that Rod Stewart's New Zealand fans will fill Vector Arena twice - not once and not three times. When we talk, Eccles says the Stewart tickets have almost gone. "By the time he gets here they'll have sold out."
He's keen to remind us that even the most glamorous shows have to add up financially. One of the more stressful quirks of the job is that the accounting often has to be done on the night, as many big international acts want payment straight away. Eccles says he's completely reliant on other people doing their jobs well - people like Frontier's accountant Barry Green, who sits down with the artists' accountants for hours on end on the night of a big show to create an on-the-spot profit and loss statement.
After all that work, the fruits of the trade turn out to be quite fleeting. "You can't make a mistake, because once the concert's been and gone it's been and gone - you can't do anything about it," says Eccles.
"It's not like your tickets last forever. They have a use-by date."
The rock veteran, who says he kept his "eyes and ears open" during his 19 years with the Angels (who he also managed), still has plenty of ideas about the way bands should tour. He jokes that bands "don't listen to him often enough".
He may be behind the scenes, but it's still the creative side of the industry he really enjoys. He has big plans to reinvent the dine and dance evening in New Zealand, taking Liberation-signed singer and DJ Peter Urlich on a tour of hotel ballrooms. Asked if New Zealanders do enough dinner-and-dance-style socialising, he answers with conviction. "They're going to," he says. "We just need to get it right."
Right now, though, Eccles just wants to survive the summer. He put on five tours over the Christmas period, and even in a dry summer like this, the vagaries of the weather make outdoor concerts stressful. "You can have a sold-out show, but if it's outdoors, the pressure's on right until the last car leaves the car park."
And for all the hard work backstage, he doesn't seem to miss his days in the spotlight. He grins when you ask if he's still having fun. "My fun is before the show happens."
Brent Eccles
* Concert promoter.
* Born: Auckland.
* Career: Joined his first band while still at school. Went on to play with various New Zealand bands, including Space Waltz, whose 1974 number one single Out in the Street features Eccles on drums.
* Moved to Australia in 1979 with Citizen Band. The band broke up, but Eccles stayed on across the Tasman.
* Joins hard rock band The Angels in 1981, who he plays with until 2000.
* Managed Johnny Diesel & The Injectors, The Angels and The Poor during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
* Hosted Australasian music show Homegrown on the Triple M network from 1986 to 1998.
* Returned to New Zealand in 1999 as a promoter. Appointed to represent the Frontier Touring Company in New Zealand.
* Appointed head of the New Zealand office of Australian label Liberation Music in 2003.
