Gig Review: Adult Friends @ Valhalla, Wellington – 19/03/2026

Adult Friends is one of those acts that don’t easily fit into a genre. It’s simultaneously their greatest asset and their biggest impediment to gaining swift notoriety. Yet they are all the better for this uneasy categorisation as it has both cultivated their style over the years while allowing them to brush shoulders and share stages with a wide variety of bands in both Wellington and other cities in New Zealand. Certainly, there are punk nuances to their sharp, angular sound at their most gratingly urgent, bringing to mind The Mint Chicks or The Buzzcocks. But beneath the prickly exterior there are moments of tenderness smothered in effects that are reminiscent of Avant Garde sounds and melodies that remind me of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode or possibly even Joy Division. Their merchandise and imagery for releases are suggestive of the gothic aesthetic of the 1980’s while lyrically, (and occasionally expressed in their stage dress) there is more than a nod toward emo – or is it Kraftwerk? It would be easier, in a commercial sense, to lean toward one cliché and pay homage. This band walks the more difficult road by being unapologetically themselves: uncanny without extroverted zaniness, dark without the makeup and costumes, heavy without being metal. Unequivocally, they seem unique in the Wellington scene; already a feat amongst the colourful acts of the area. Maybe it’s because they’re not a colour at all – they’re glow-in-the-dark.

Thursday nights at Valhalla are usually local band nights. So too was tonight’s bill, with a point of difference being that Adult Friends, along with Charmort (Charlie Morton) and Spiral, were beginning a three-night North Island tour including Taupo and Auckland. Other acts in other cities would include Say or Do and Lacquered Black. Walking into the venue I was met by the band and after a quick discussion it was confirmed what I had heard: lead/noise guitarist Daniel Maslen had left the band (and his other band, Voodoo Bloo also it would turn out after talking to other audience members). Now the band was continuing on without him, but with keyboardist Charlie Morton as his replacement (foreboding pun intended). I was looking forward to hearing how their sound might have developed without the signature noisy lead offering a layer of dissonance.

First band up was Spiral, touted as a shoegaze band by the band themselves, and it’s a worthy and appropriate label, although there are elements of post-rock and ambient noise swirling around to enjoy. Featuring members from Slow Burn, Crying Club and Shuriken, the band put on an admirable and heartfelt performance filled with hanging chords and intense musical waves that would build and then break to great appreciation from the growing crowd.

Second on stage was none other than Charmort who would be playing later with Adult Friends. His Alesis synth and laptop created an impressive stage plot, but his set was difficult to compete with the intensity that Spiral had reached earlier. Without drums or vocals Charlie still entertained the audience with swift playing and unorthodox patches. He also incorporated some interesting field recordings of conversations. His standout piece was an instrumental of the ironically named and iconic Radiohead song, Idioteque.

Finally, after Charlie’s keyboard was moved slightly to the side to accommodate the other two members he would now share the stage with, Adult Friends began their set. The band now consists of primary songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Jackson Kidd, longtime bassist and vocalist Harrison Yates, and drummer Billy Bathgate (also from Burnt Out Graduate). They opened with new songs (No Place, No Sound) which most of the crowd had never heard before. They then ripped into S Is For Stress, their latest single that is oddly uplifting and downright poppy. The keys really added to clarity of melodies and made the tonal centres more obvious than in the past. This really helped Jackson Kidd’s singing; it was the best I had ever heard him perform. True, there was some bombast and dramatic stage dancing missing, but the sound had improved. The band then introduced their next song, a tune they had not played live in over a year, the provocatively named Blackmail.txt, then Some Loophole (another new song).

Next, the band welcomed Henry McKenzie-Bridle from Spiral to join them for another older song, the intense Ryan Gosling, also from the Blackmail.txt EP and one of their earliest songs.

Billy returned and launched into three new songs, (Selbstmord, DLMGA and Days Weeks Forget). These songs definitely showcased a wide range of influences, such as djent, post-hardcore, new wave, synth pop and alt rock. There were elements of Deftones, Placebo and even, if you believe it, a sprinkling of Split Enz. It all sounds impossible to combine, yet the songs betray a wide range of influences. As if aware of how foolhardy it is to present many new songs to an unsuspecting audience, the band played the more familiar We Sleep Easy from their latest full length album, 2024’s Find Me In The Inferno as a final song.

The crowd was thanked profusely for coming along and making the event a success. They even (tongue in cheek surely), asked if anyone might be coming by Taupō tomorrow to check them out and join them on the road! As instruments were packed up, the audience screamed for one more and the band, after a small conversation, agreed. Charlie came down from the stage for the three remaining members who recorded Find Me In The Inferno to play The Replacement as an encore, (which just so happens to be one of my personal favourite songs of theirs). After the song built up tension then exploded, with the famous bridge where the drums seem to play against the rhythm of the guitar in a hypnotic fashion, the crowd was satiated and the night had come to an end – but for the band, the tour was only just beginning…

Photo Credit: Nicholas Clark