Performance: Shihad, Weta, Fur Patrol

Auckland Town Hall
Review: Russell Baillie


A recent English review of Shihad said that if they were American, they'd be huge. You'll get no argument here.

But then they wouldn't be Shihad and there wouldn't be nights like this: a great, galloping three-part celebration of the state of New Zealand rock'n'roll 2000 coming mid-way through the band's national tour with fellow Wellington-bred acts and album debutantes Weta and Fur Patrol.

This was one for the fans. And Shihad frontman Jon Toogood's entreaties to his sold-out audience to sing along, clap and dance harder became a slightly distracting sideshow to the music. Oh well, the music was great anyway.

Some of us older followers may mumble about the days when the band's live act wasn't quite so user-friendly, when rather than singing along to the quietly majestic choruses Pacifier or Sport and Religion, you just held on for grim death in front of a band to be survived rather than enjoyed.

Oh well, a couple of bars of My Mind's Sedate or old fave Bitter was enough to remind us how far the Shihad throttle can open.

And also how the band's four component parts are interlocked, especially to the drumming of Tom Larkin. Oh no, we've started talking about the drummer ... back to the gig and the beginning.

That was Fur Patrol, the Julia Deans-fronted band delivering - possibly because of the blokey competition to follow - what sounded like their "rock" set a little shorn of the subtleties apparently on recent debut album Pet.

Still, they went down a treat, with tunes like Holy, Lydia and the brooding Short Way to Fall shining through the haze of elegantly fuzzy, guitars and sinuous rhythm section.

There's something dangerous and unpredictable about Weta, something funny, too, in how the Jaggeresque clowning about of frontman Aaron Tokona undercuts their occasional (and possibly tongue-in-cheek) guitar heroics, much in the way Toogood's skinny frame undercuts Shihad's.

Weta's sound mix wasn't the best, but their sheer wildcard swagger made them riveting.

A big night all round. And one of the best.