The Auckland Arts Festival is in full swing and we’re in the Town Hall waiting for dance company Black Grace to come on stage for its 30th anniversary show. A DJ is warming the crowd with old-school club favourites, mostly stuff from the 80s and 90s. The guy behind the decks cuts a familiar figure, a silhouette in a bucket hat. His name is Manuel Matisi but everyone knows him as Manuel Bundy.
If you’re in your 40s or 50s and you used to go dancing in central Auckland, he soundtracked your youth. The Shortland Bar, Cause Celebre and Box, Khuja Lounge, he was a regular at them all, playing music you didn’t know but which, at three in the morning, sounded like the best thing you’d ever heard.
Back at the Town Hall, this is not his crowd. Next to me, a couple, perhaps in their 80s, look discomfited by the music volume. Further along the row, however, a woman, slightly younger – 70s? – is out of her seat, lost in the joy of her own dance. Behind me, a cabinet minister shakes an out-of-time leg, while below in the stalls, people from young teens to 60-something disco dancers are throwing their own shapes.
Bundy just nods along to the beat; he’s got them and he knows it. Now 54, Bundy can still be found about town if you know where to look.
“These days, I mostly play restaurants and bars. Places like Hallertau, Queens Rooftop & Wineshop; there’s a lot of vinyl bars now. It’s good for us, there’s some good DJs on the roster.
“I like it,” he says with the laugh of a man who hasn’t slept properly in three decades, “because I’m pretty much done by 10pm.”
Black Grace are done before 10, and we spill into Aotea Square, the music still thundering in our ears. The audience for the musical Six has just left the Civic and the combined crowds mean there are suddenly 3000 people in central Auckland with nothing to do. They all seem to be headed for the car park.
Yet, despite the buffeting the hospitality sector has suffered from Covid lockdowns, inflation, the cost-of-living crisis and changing entertainment preferences, there are after-10pm options for the not-so-young.
Auckland’s night-time economy – 6pm to 6am – was last year worth $454 million, says Viv Beck, CEO of business association Heart of the City. That’s down 10% on pre-Covid, but it’s still a third of all spending in the CBD.
“There’s a lot you can do quite late,” Beck says. “Areas like Vulcan Lane, the Chancery, the Waterfront, Britomart, Commercial Bay, the Viaduct. There’s lots of rooftop bars now. So, it’s not what it was, but you can still have a good time after 10 o’clock.”
But where? Are there, for example, dance clubs for older people? Without wanting to be that person whining about the old days, there used to be on every corner a nightclub from which people would tip out onto the street, bleary-eyed, as the sun came up.
“Tastes change,” says Simon Grigg, who started the Lost Nightlife of Inner-City Auckland Facebook page, which has 29,000 members. “We’re no longer so club-music-orientated in our tastes, and that meant fewer people were going to clubs to dance to house, hip-hop, jazz.”
Grigg would know. When the definitive history of New Zealand popular culture is written, he’ll have his own chapter. Among his many ventures were the adjoined High St nightclubs Box and Cause Celebre. The queues were long, the music cutting edge – legend has it that Grigg fired a DJ on the spot for playing a record by the hit-making pop/dance act Snap.
“Twenty to 30 years ago, Auckland was in the midst of a social revolution of sorts,” says Grigg. “The rise of Pasifika and mixed nightlife, plus beat and club music meant it was all really exciting. There was a huge buzz and people wanted to be part of it.”
I go in search of the buzz.
After the dawn
It’s Wednesday morning, there is no buzz, but I’ve just received a text message. It’s from Goblin, a venue in Ponsonby that opened late last year, upstairs in the corner building that used to be occupied by the Golden Dawn. That name will cause ears to prick up. The ironically self-styled “tavern of power”, which closed in 2018, still causes grown men to stare, misty-eyed, into middle distance.
“We’re not trying to recreate Golden Dawn,” says Hamish Steptoe, one of Goblin’s directors, a couple of days later. Perhaps not, but Goblin employs five or six staff from back in the day, you can get the old Welsh rarebit on the nibbles menu, and as well as occupying the same building, Goblin is co-run by key Golden Dawn figure and hairstylist to the stars Stephen Marr, who owns the bricks and mortar. It’s aiming for a similar demographic, too.
“This whole [Ponsonby Rd] block teems with craziness and youth, and there are lots of bars for that, so we prioritise a slightly older crowd,” says Steptoe. “It’s not ageist, but certain things happen with life experience; a bar full of 30- to 60-year-olds is different to be in than a bar packed with 20-year-olds.”
Inside, the aesthetic is expensively distressed-chic, and so are the patrons. The seating is deep and comfortable, and you can get table service. Steptoe says the furni-ture has been designed so that if the vibe is right, tables and chairs can quickly be pushed aside, and the central space becomes a dancefloor.
Appropriately, pumping out tunes on the Thursday I visit is a DJ who on closer inspection turns out to be Listener columnist Russell Brown. He’s thrilled to find Hallertau #2 on tap, a favourite from Golden Dawn days. (Be assured that not everyone in Goblin is a media luvvie, but this is Ponsonby so, y’know…)
Entirely by accident, I spend $42 on a shot of Japanese whisky, but the beer is well priced by Auckland standards. The rotating wine list is selected by staffer Mel, who used to be at eateries Prego and Soul, and who explains that it’s a celebration of women’s influence on New Zealand wine-making.
Steptoe says that as much as being a bar, he envisions Goblin as a community hub. Accordingly, there are life-drawing evenings, and spoken word nights. What is he hoping to get out of Goblin, apart from getting rich?
“Not even rich,” he protests. “It was an opportunity to give shape to my week and get off my computer and contribute something to the community. That sounds cheesy …” It does. What’s the real reason? “Honestly? Just dumb enthusiasm, I think.”
Backing live music
If the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have dampened the night-time economy nationwide, Ōtautahi Christchurch has had it worse. Pre-quakes, the city had a thriving pub scene, which Nick Inkster has almost single-handedly pledged to revive. His secret weapon is live music.
“I’ve travelled the world and was just drawn to pubs that had live music,” says Inkster, a builder by training. “I thought I’d bring that back to Christchurch. We pay for musicians every night. It is a cost on the business, but I don’t know if we’d be as busy as we are otherwise, because people are drawn to live music.”
Since he returned to Aotearoa from Australia a decade ago, his Inkster Company has opened or absorbed eight venues. Bands or DJs play in all of his bars, and he employs a full-time booker to make it happen. “I’m big on trying to attract my generation out,” says Inkster, 40.
“Christchurch was missing something that catered to the 30-plus age group, somewhere that had good cocktails, nice wine, live music.” The flagship, OGB, was born. From there came the Austin Club, an underground speakeasy named after Inkster’s vintage Austin 10 car, which used to sit outside OGB. (“I’m not really into cars, but I love old buildings and old things.”)
Whereas Inkster is big on reviving heritage – his businesses are all in old buildings – Christchurch City Council is pinning a lot of hope on the shiny $683 million Te Kaha stadium project. It’s scheduled to open in 2026, and will host sports, concerts and other major events.
“I’m excited about [Te Kaha] and I can’t wait, and I think it will be great for Christchurch,” Inkster says. “But I haven’t built my businesses around waiting for the stadium. I believe it will be the icing on top of the Christchurch hospitality scene.”
Whiskey in the bar
Back in Tāmaki Makaurau, it’s an early-evening Friday in Te Komititanga – what used to be called Queen Elizabeth II Square – at the bottom of Queen St. It’s bustling in a way that even a street musician playing My Way on a bamboo flute fails to dampen. I’m not here for Sinatra covers; I’m looking for Kemuri Hi-Fi, a Japanese-inspired underground whisky and cocktail bar that hosts live DJs and is said to boast the best sound system in Auckland. Except I can’t find it. Eventually, I spot a dark, closed double-door with a small sign, most of which is in Japanese. Gotcha.
One buzzer and a door camera later and I’m comfortably seated in a plush, darkened room talking to Vishal Vasan – Vee – co-owner of the bar. Vasan’s one of those people who gets things done. He grew up in Wellington, hanging with the Fat Freddy’s crowd – the track Midnight Marauders was recorded in Vee’s bedroom. He’s DJed in London, started a vinyl-only, small-press record label, set up bars and restaurants here and in the UK, and opened Kemuri Hi-Fi last year with his mate Jason Clark, a name in the hospo world. Vasan’s records line the walls, Clark’s personal whisky collection forms the basis of the drinks menu.
With the $42 Goblin whisky still a hole in my bank account, I wonder what it would cost to drink Kemuri’s best. Vasan points to a bottle in a locked glass cabinet. “The Talisker 43 is $950 a dram.” Ah. You can get a house pour for $14, though, and there are all the usual drinks if scotch isn’t your thing. If scotch is your thing, there’s a membership scheme, which gets you your own bottle of Kemuri whisky and special treatment on busy nights when entry might be limited.
Given the in-built exclusivity, who is Kemuri Hi-Fi for? “We want it to be for everyone,” Vasan says, barely failing to elicit a raised eyebrow in response. “We set it up as somewhere we’d want to go that isn’t K Rd and all about having shots and getting pissed.”
There’s an Asian-inspired menu but, like Nick Inkster’s Christchurch venues, music is central to the Kemuri Hi-Fi experience. The space can be turned into a dance floor, and Kemuri has an ever-changing roster of top names spinning vinyl. Big-deal international DJ JFB played; Nathan Haines did the Valentine’s Day gig; Peter Urlich is threatening a Steely Dan night. Go on then, how much did the sound system cost?
“A lot,” Vasan says, laughing. “Which is why we have financial backers.”
Naturally, Manuel Bundy plays a set at Kemuri every couple of months, taking advantage of the delicious sound and even staying out after 10pm if the occasion demands.
“People our age, we’re not going to go out every week, but if there’s a special event on, people show up,” Bundy says.
“There was a gig in The Hollywood [cinema in Avondale] the other week, and it’s gigs like that where you run into people from back in the day. And for us, we’ll show up if there’s a legendary DJ in town, like a Gilles Peterson. I guess it’s like someone from the 70s going to a Rolling Stones concert. That’s who we are.”
Capital beat
The courtenayprecinct.nz website still claims Wellington’s Courtenay Place is “a central hub of entertainment”, boasting “numerous bars, nightclubs, and restaurants that stay open late, making it a popular destination for both locals and tourists”. But the dilapidated strip really isn’t, not these days. A massive redevelopment began on May 4; never has a site needed The Force more.
There are, however, places for people of a certain age to enjoy themselves away from the strip. The nearby Cuba Precinct, centred around Cuba Mall, maintains its funky vibe (and, oddly, a talking tree – aka Jared Wood, a performance artist who dresses up as a plant and plays various woodwind instruments). Though this area, too, curls a little around the edges.
For drinks, try Puffin wine bar (as recommended by The New York Times, no less), which is open seven days and attached to the Intrepid Hotel on Ghuznee St; and underground whiskey bar Dee’s Place. A friend mentions the “cocktail pub” Regent, “which I haven’t been to,” on the corner of Ghuznee and Cuba. (A few days later, I get a message: “Dialling in from the coal face, I can report that the Regent is TOO LOUD.”)
The speakeasy-styled Hawthorn Lounge, on Tory St, is dark, a bit smouldery in a leather couch/smoking jacket kind of way. Also recommended, Rogue & Vagabond (Garrett St), where you can catch live jazz, and its upstairs sibling, Bedlam & Squalor, which occasionally holds small classical performances.
“Bedlam got lucky with the loan of an upright piano, which has served them well for getting classical in,” says Sounz Centre for New Zealand Music CEO Hannah Darroch.
Finding your crowd
Places like Goblin and Kemuri Hi-Fi become popular by word of mouth. But if you’re not plugged into that scene, where do you go to find out where you go? Don’t bother checking Facebook, says Sylvia Giles.
“Our strata of elder millennials used Facebook events for everything – gigs, parties – but Facebook has broken down,” says Giles, 41, a doctor and former journalist for Listener stablemate Kia Ora magazine. After Covid, Giles and her partner, Jason Marshall, moved back to Waikato from Auckland with their 2-year-old.
Dismayed at what seemed to be the lack of things to do, the pair started The Waikato Draft (thewaikatodraft.com), a witty monthly newsletter of all the goings on in Kirikiriroa and its surrounds. “Hamilton has a reputation for being boring, but I actually think it’s just that there are cliques,” Giles says. “There have always been exciting things to do here.” Work and home commitments mean that the Draft went on hiatus in May, but Giles says an Instagram retool could be on the cards.
The Waikato Draft method for finding your scene:
■ Find a local who knows what’s good. I approached The Draft like every editor: find an expert and get them to do their thing.
■ If you can’t befriend one, just ask a cool person which one place you should go to see good music, etc.
■ If you have a good local venue, try to frequent it on days other than Friday or Saturday – it’s good for the health of your hospo ecosystem.
■ Reddit. I can’t stress this enough. You can get answers to your bespoke question.
■ Find a Draft! Check Substack for local newsletters.