A "brilliant and beautiful man" who put Wanganui on New Zealand's underground music map was farewelled in the city on Monday.
Alan Robert Cameron, also known as Al and ALC5, died suddenly of a medical condition at the end of June, barely into his forties. He was cremated in Wellington on July 8.
About 100 people attended the memorial service at the Cleveland Funeral Home Chapel, and his ashes were taken to Wanganui's Aramoho Cemetery. A tribute concert was held on Monday night.
Al Cameron came to live in Wanganui in 2004, his brother Chris said. A musical man of many talents, his upstairs flat in Victoria Ave was known as The Eye of Night. It hosted visiting bands and was open to anyone.
"He helped change Wanganui from a backwater into a musical Mecca of sorts. I ended up seeing more bands in one year in Wanganui than the last five years in Wellington," friend Jonah Marinovich said.
Al was a kind and generous host. He made people welcome with homemade cakes and cups of tea and turned on the elements of his gas stove to warm them, using a homemade fan to direct the heat down the hall.
Friends and family cited and described his intellect, skill, generosity and independence of mind.
Brought up in Dunedin, Nelson and Auckland, he was extremely bright at school but didn't like winning scholastic prizes. He contrived to clean his bedroom rather than swot for final year school exams - making him runner-up rather than dux.
He went on to get three degrees - in engineering, information technology and language - and was also a maths whiz.
"He was the smartest guy I ever met," his brother Michael said.
The young Al travelled extensively, to Australia, the UK, France, Japan and the US. He worked in various jobs, including engineering, information technology and as a motorcycle courier.
In 1998 he returned to New Zealand and lived in a series of the largest cities before settling on Wanganui, where his mother was brought up.
Despite being highly qualified, he put his energy into music, playing with bands like The Datsuns and Coco Solid and helping arrange gigs, lighting, tours and sound systems. He built and tinkered with equipment, able to make it "out of almost nothing".
He also filmed gigs and put the footage on DVDs. Friends want to make these available to the public, and also to produce a book about him.
One friend who was broke and depressed emailed him while he was overseas. He received a letter and NZ$500 in return. Al bought a poetry book for another, at a time when she had no money.
Brother Chris saw him in Wellington in December, when he was about to fly off overseas.
"His shoes were falling apart, with holey socks showing through. He had calculated they had just enough wear in them for him to walk from the city to the airport. He was going to buy his next pair in the US on his stopover."
Al had put his band equipment into storage while he was away. On his return he and a friend were spotted wheeling it back to his Victoria Ave flat on a skateboard, in the middle of the night.
Arriving in London with a band, he refused to take a cab to the venue on principle. He set off on the Tube with his backpack and gear - and got there first.
Though he "aced" everything he tried, friends and family said Al was a quiet person, humble and self-aware.
"He was extraordinary," brother Michael said, "A brilliant and beautiful man."
OBITUARY: Fond farewell for music identity
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