Annie Crummer accompanied with a kapa haka group, performed at the War Memorial Theatre, on Sunday, September 28. Photo / Anne-Marie de Bruin
Annie Crummer accompanied with a kapa haka group, performed at the War Memorial Theatre, on Sunday, September 28. Photo / Anne-Marie de Bruin
REVIEW
Veteran New Zealand musician Annie Crummer shared the love with Tairāwhiti when she and her father Rarotongan crooner Papa Will Crummer performed two shows on Saturday and Sunday as part of the Te Tairāwhiti Art Festival.
Crummer began the matinee Sunday show with the anthemic Language, from heralbum of the same name, accompanied by a kapa haka group.
“It’s so great to be here in Tairāwhiti,” she said, noting she and her band had been welcomed with a pōwhiri.
They then surged into a great rendition of What’s The Time, Mr Wolf, by New Zealand band Southside of Bombay, also popularised by its appearance on the soundtrack of the classic 1994 New Zealand film,Once Were Warriors.
The band ably followed the song up with another Kiwi classic: You Oughta Be In Love, performed with fine back-up harmonies.
She then explained the background to another of her songs, Here Come the Gods, co-written by Neil Finn from her 1996 album, Seventh Wave.
She joked that it was from Finn’s “rubbish bin”, and when he wrote it, he could only hear reo, rather than English for the song and this was helped by Rarotongan reo from Crummer’s mother, Tangi.
After all this, most of the band moved off stage and 85-year-old Papa Will Crummer, the man who Crummer said “taught her everything about music” walked on stage.
They played a range of songs with Papa at front and centre performing vocals in English and Rarotongan reo, with songs where the audience sang along.
The highlight of his section was undoubtedly a performance of I Left My Heart in San Francisco, this time changed to I Left My Heart in Rarotonga.
Annie noted that the song, as famously performed by Tony Bennett, was about a cable car in San Francisco, of which there were none in Rarotonga.
Papa Will’s singing was evocative of the Pacific, and he brought the islands to Gisborne, also accompanied by Annie playing a drum and a Selina Patia on ukulele.
The show then moved to its two final songs - For Today, the 1985 hit by Netherworld Dancing Toys, which featured Crummer on vocals when she was still a teenager and set off her long Aotearoa music career.
She closed the show with another of her favourites, Melting Pot, which she had performed when she was with her band When The Cat’s Away - a song about a melting pot of cultures.
It was a fitting ending for the show which celebrated culture and was a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon in Tairāwhiti, soaking in Pacific vibes and classic tracks from Crummer’s back catalogue - part of the great Kiwi songbook.
Annie Crummer and her father Will Crummer performed at the War Memorial Theatre, on Sunday, September 28. Photo / Anne-Marie de Bruin
