David Dallas on why we need to highlight small venues to save live music

Aotearoa may be small, but its music scene has always been mighty - and for David Dallas, it’s a scene he credits as paving the way for his illustrious 20-year career.

The Papatoetoe born-and-bred rapper, 42, has a lengthy list of accolades to his name: he’s a four-time Aotearoa Music Award winner and a three-time Taite Music Prize nominee, to name a few. In 2022, his platinum-plated tune Runnin’ was selected for the soundtrack of Adam Sandler’s hit film, Hustle. And who could forget his feature on Scribe’s anthemic ode to New Zealand hip-hop, Not Many - The Remix, in 2003?

For Dallas, it’s a journey that began in the dimly lit, cramped, clammy spaces of Auckland’s live music scene in the early to mid-2000s. Several of these venues - think Fu Bar, Khuja and Club 4:20 - have been lost in the annals of time, but one standout in Dallas’ memory remains.

“Galatos was the first proper performance venue for me since I was on an actual stage. Everywhere else I’d performed before then, I was on a little riser - like, two inches above the patrons,” Dallas, seated in front of said stage, recalls to the Herald.

It’s at Galatos that we meet for our interview on a blustery September day. The historic live music venue, a stone’s throw from Auckland’s iconic Karangahape Rd, is housed within a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it beige building with arched windows that dates back to the early 1910s. The property, which originally served as a lodge for the United Ancient Order of Druid, was launched as a music venue in 1999 - its native timber parquet flooring hosting the likes of the Foo Fighters, Stereophonics and a pre-superstardom Coldplay.

Inside, there is a small stage flanked by a door with “Backstage, Artists Only” scribbled upon it in white chalk. Graffiti emblazons a small wall, while thick, dark drapes shroud the rest. The standing area feels spacious (with just four others during daylight hours, at least) but come night-time, the space is quickly filled with spectators - you may even get smacked by the bathroom door while standing in line for a drink.

It’s this space that will play host to the inaugural event of Venue Veterans, a new initiative launched to raise awareness for Aotearoa’s grassroots venues. The programme, a partnership between Tiger Beer and industry expert Dan Woolston, will see iconic local artists return to an old stomping ground that helped shape their careers, in the hope music fans will rediscover the haunts that remain fundamental to the fabric of New Zealand’s live music scene.

Dallas is headlining the programme’s first show on Thursday, September 26 in a bid to draw attention to Galatos - a venue that proved pivotal in his early career.

Galatos was one of the first venues David Dallas performed at two decades ago. Photo / Supplied

“I played it within the first year of my performing - it would have been around 2004. I remember it being difficult because I couldn’t hear myself, which is a standard thing ... like, you have your monitors on stage to hear yourself. I was that inexperienced, I didn’t know to ask the soundman, ‘Hey, man, turn my mic up’. I just went out there, I can’t hear myself, but I’ve just got to let it fly,” he says with a laugh.

“When you first start performing in that sort of environment, you’re kind of like, ‘Is it me? Maybe I’m just I’m just not saying it loud enough?’ So you shout louder and louder. Then you come off the stage and people are like, ‘Bro, why were you shouting?’”

It was in this intimate space that Dallas began cutting his teeth in the art of live performance - a skill he has flexed on Aotearoa’s festival circuit many times over, from the Homegrown stage to Rhythm and Vines and 2012′s Big Day Out. In 2006, Dallas - then performing under the pseudonym Con Psy in the two-piece Frontline - opened for 50 Cent and G-Unit, and in 2014, he supported Eminem on the New Zealand leg of his Rapture tour.

“I always look at this venue like it’s the only one of its kind here. We don’t really have anything else like it in Auckland. We don’t have anything of this size that is a legit performance venue with a stage and can do production. I actually feel like locally it’s underutilised, so if I can bring sort of any sort of awareness that will make more people have a look at it, then that’s cool,” he tells the Herald.

“It’s got a history. Tons of great international acts have played here.”

David Dallas performing at Galatos in the early 2000s. Photo / @ddotdallas / Instagram

Despite its impressive back catalogue of performers, Galatos and its counterparts face an uncertain future. Live music spaces and hospitality providers were a major casualty of Covid-19 due to the long-standing impacts of lockdowns, mandates and social restrictions. Post-pandemic hardship has only been compounded by rising operational costs and increased expenses amid the cost of living crisis: a recent survey of 500 operators found 75% of New Zealand’s small-to-medium hospitality providers are feeling the strain, with Auckland losing four nightclubs - Roxy, Everybody’s, Saturdays and AV Club - in the last year alone.

Golden Dawn, the Kings Arms, Bar Bodega, Mighty Mighty and Dive are just a handful of other venues that have shut up shop in recent times. Andrea Clark, Galatos’ owner, hopes they won’t face the same fate - despite their costs increasing 30% in the last 12 months.

“We’ve had some of the best live acts come through our doors. However, like all businesses, our costs have increased,” Clark says. “We need the support of music fans so we can continue to deliver memorable nights out for tomorrow’s generation.”

While social media has become a musician’s bread and butter, it wasn’t always this way. Live music venues were long the lifeblood of up-and-coming artists, not only providing them with crucial performance experience, but exposing them to potential fans. While a viral TikTok can now hold the key to overnight success, for many years would-be stars had to grind the club circuit in the hope people would buy their music (a CD, that is - not a Spotify download).

“It’s a good thing to be supporting local venues, coming out of Covid-19 and things like that. But also because I recall how important local, small venues and performing live was for me when I started. I think it’s a valuable thing,” Dallas says.

With so many once-thriving spaces falling victim to the economic climate, he worries it will deprive future artists of integral experiences: honing their craft before a live audience, importantly, but also fostering a face-to-face, corporeal connection with fans - without a screen between them.

“When I started out, there were tons of opportunities to perform. There were always gigs going on - it wasn’t a thing where I had to go out on a limb to make my own. Promoters would be like, ‘Hey, we’ve got like four other acts and you can come and jump on the show’ - and that was a regular thing. For a lot of local up-and-coming acts now, it’s not the same,” he says.

“It’s not that smaller venues are better, but it’s a different experience. If you play a festival, and the crowd is like 10-15m away, there’s an ease with that - it’s rowdy, it’s going off. When you have to perform at a smaller venue, it’s intimate; everyone’s looking at you, and you feel it,” he muses.

“If you’ve performed at intimate venues and had to win a crowd over, it’s much easier to then play a festival. In a small venue, you can see the [crowd’s] expressions - you can see someone looking away or someone pulling a face, and it can throw you off. If you can master that, I think it sets you on a good course for any other type of performance you do.”

David Dallas is performing the inaugural show for Venue Veterans, an initiative that aims to spotlight small local venues. Photo / Carson Bluck

The small clubs that Dallas frequented as an up-and-coming rapper would become an intrinsic part of New Zealand’s burgeoning hip-hop scene. Auckland rap royalty Home Brew, King Kapisi and Ladi6′s band Verse 2 were among the acts that found themselves at Khuja - an upper Queen St lounge that had been known as “the home of Aotearoa soul” before its closure in 2012. Meanwhile, Fu Bar - which shut in 2011 - was a hotspot for the likes of Dallas, DJ Sir-vere, Scribe and Savage, hosting some of the biggest local and international names in hip-hop.

“Khuja on Queen St - that was super important for me and a lot of local acts, Home Brew played there. That was an important one for me and my solo stuff,” Dallas says. “When I was first legally allowed to go clubbing, Fu Bar was one of the first venues I went to. When I got a chance to perform there, I really enjoyed it. 4:20 on K Road was where a lot of my friends would DJ - that was one of the first places that exclusively played rap music.”

It was Dallas’ peers who were among the first to comment on the news that he would be returning to Galatos.

“Galatos was definitely one of the first venues we [Deceptikonz] performed at too!!” Savage commented on an Instagram post Dallas shared to announce the upcoming show. “This is solid what you’re doing uce, venues and platforms like this is what helped us launch our careers [sic],” he added, while Scribe weighed in: “Looks like fun... Gotta pay respect to the man who dropped the best verse on the greatest NZ remix ever.”

For Dallas, it speaks to the sense of camaraderie that remains 20-plus years after hip-hop first began taking off in Tāmaki Makaurau; a community that was fostered through shared experiences, spaces, and of course, music.

“When I first posted about Venue Veterans, some of the first people to comment on it were local artists. I posted on Instagram and Savage was like, ‘Oh yeah, Galatos - me and the Deceptikonz, that’s one of the first places we played’ ... Everyone remembers these places. I think you’d be surprised, but no one’s too big to do stuff like this if the story is right,” he says.

“There’s sentimental attachment to these things. A lot of the places I have strong memories of - because I’m old and have been around for a long time - aren’t there anymore. If it’s a place that I have ties to, [I’d do it], but I think the opportunity should be given to other people. This particular one is cool because I have a story with it - so wherever people have a story with a venue, [Venue Veterans] should come there.

“Whether it’s bars, hospitality, everyone is feeling the pinch at the moment. The music industry is not exempt from that. That’s why we do things like this, to help support it and make people realise how important it is,” he adds.

“It’s vital, in my opinion.”

100% of the koha donations on entry to David Dallas’ gig at Galatos on September 26 were given directly to the venue to help fund its ongoing operations.

This article was originally published on September 24, 2024.

Lana Andelane is an Auckland-based multimedia journalist covering lifestyle and entertainment stories. She joined the Herald in 2024 and enjoys writing about anything related to pop culture, fashion, beauty or music.