Six60 brought their hits to the newest big venue in New Zealand music, Shed 530 in Puketapu, Hawke's Bay. Photos / Six60
THE FACTS:
- Six60 played their first New Zealand show of the summer in Hawke’s Bay on Saturday night.
- Shed 530 in Puketapu was the host, a new boutique venue that two-and-half years ago was sitting under the silt of Cyclone Gabrielle.
- Six60 has spent the winter recording a new album and played the crowd a taste of what could be the first single.
REVIEW:
To stand on a stage in front of New Zealanders and claim to be good at what you do is to be seen as a heretic.
Prime ministers get booted for doing it. All Blacks wouldn’t dare.
Kiwi culture dictates that you must be anointed as a great, a legend, a national icon.
And when and if that adulation comes, you must always play it down, and say someone else should really take all the credit for your performance.
To accept it is to risk opprobrium. You’ll get your flowers when you’re dead.
And yet, here they come.
The Six60 heretics, playing to an expectant crowd in the Hawke’s Bay settlement of Puketapu on Saturday night.
Before the main show is a fun entree from talented 22-year-old Hawke’s Bay singer Makayla.
As the sun goes down on us, a crowd that has waited months for this moment gets to see the most popular Kiwi band of a generation.
What makes Six60’s body of work over the past decade and a half so different from others from these shores is that they’re not shy about their success, and they won’t be cowed.
This is a band that has put in the hard yards in the recording studio, building a compilation of close to 30 hits that have collectively taken over our radios.
All She Wrote, Only To Be, Long Gone, Special, Don’t Forget Your Roots - together as a package they work so well, and as a result they’ve broken down a door to headlining huge shows to hundreds of thousands across New Zealand since Covid-19.
And Chris Mac, Ji Fraser, Marlon Gerbes and lead singer Matiu Walters lean into that, hard.
“Can’t stop believing I’m the greatest,” Walters sings, and there’s no doubt in his voice.
For the 5000 people at the fun and classy and scenic new Shed 530 venue, and a few in the million-dollar homes overlooking it, Six60 had a treat planned.
A new album has been in the works all winter, so they played what Walters suggested could be the first single.
It turns out it’s a song about sitting down and reflecting on their accomplishments.
It’s called We Made It.
The ballad, which follows the template of the sunshine pop rock they’ve mastered, gets the crowd’s attention and applause.
“Is it a hit?” Walters politely asks everyone afterwards. You get the feeling he already knows the answer.
They start the night with their sing-along waiata Pepeha.
The funky Vibes gets the crowd moving, but as the show goes on, Six60 lean back towards their more relaxed hits, Only To Be, Purple, and Someone To Be Around, as they shake off some of the rust of a season without playing together and a few sound issues.
In the middle is a fascinating collaboration on Uphill with Yelawolf, a rapper the group befriended on a trip to the American Midwest.
It shows the pulling power of Six60 that he travelled halfway across the world to sing a song with them.
In another world, this entire gig might not have happened. Six60 might not have made it.
Shed 530 was hammered by Cyclone Gabrielle.
The valley paddock the punters were standing on in their droves on Saturday was once upon a terrible time covered in silt.
Organisers were then earlier this year forced to postpone the scheduled Easter show to ensure the venue was ready for a band as big as Six60 as its crowning opening.
It’s safe to say it is now.
As Six60 and Walters - wearing an All Blacks jersey - finish their encore to adulation, the full setlist shows just what they have achieved.
Don’t Give It Up, Please Don’t Go, Closer, Rise Up 2.0, Fade Away - none of them are played on the night.
Yes, that’s right, this is a Kiwi band that can choose not to play five of its platinum charting singles and still deliver a show packed with hits and intrigue.
There’s no other band in the country like them.
They’ve made it all right.