Gig Review: My Baby @ San Fran, Wellington – 18/03/2026

I knew this night was gonna be a good ol’ knees‑up when I clocked celebrated multi‑instrumentalist and alt‑folk songwriter Graeme James setting up his menagerie on stage just prior to kicking off. If you haven’t seen him in action, you’re missing out on something really special. He does incredibly infectious Brit‑folk, layered with rich looping mastered during his days busking on the capital’s streets and on international stages. Tonight, he’s brought the whole music shop! With well‑practiced alchemy, he melds violin (often as much strummed as bowed), bass, mandolin, a small ukulele-style guitar, harmonica and keys with quirky layered vocals, constructing an immersive live sound that insists you be drawn into it.

Overseas, he’s built a strong following as the man to get things going. Most recently he’s been partly based in the Netherlands, where his touring has overlapped with My Baby, and naturally, when they all discovered they’d be over here together, he begged to join the party. And it was the party James was keen to get started. “Let’s go for the hardest Wednesday night of all time!” he calls out as he breaks into a couple of undeniably hook‑laden reels. Everyone surges forward and immediately starts clapping in time and shuffling about. By the end of his set we are all foot‑stomping, swinging partners, arm in arm, and shouting the To Be Found By Love chorus at the top of our voices like we were at some country hoedown during a Shetland Isles pub jam night. Given half a chance, even the local sheep herders and cattle dogs might have snuck in! His set was a total blast. If you are at a loose end or not, go find him at your local during his upcoming June tour.

You don’t so much arrive at a My Baby gig as get swept into it. First comes Joost van Dijck’s deep, percussive, throbbing beat – like a midnight freight winding its way down the Hutt Valley – then a shimmer of Southern twang from Daniel ‘Dafreez’ Johnston’s guitar. The blood starts pumping with a heartbeat of toms and cymbals, and finally Cato van Dijck’s sweet growl kicks in. It’s the trademark sound of the Dutch–New Zealand trio My Baby, back on track to deliver another payload of soul, funk and dirty, dirty Southern blues. Their sound obviously conjures up railway metaphors, but there are plenty of other flavours too. Johnston’s love of old‑school slide players like John Lee Hooker and newer heroes such as Dan Auerbach is clearly evident. His guitar leads every groove with both rhythm and leads layering, alternating between the two, while Joost van Dijck provides not just the engine room but the whole juggernaut behind it. His sister Cato adds both bass – by working the top strings – and even more colours from the middle register of her guitar. And, of course, she’s the main provider of sweet-and-sour bluesy vocals, too. They are only three, but they are a powerhouse combined.

Born in 2012 from the embers of Amsterdam soul outfit The Souldiers, My Baby – Dutch siblings Cato (lead vocals, bass, violin) and Joost van Dijck (drums) with Kiwi‑born guitarist Daniel ‘Dafreez’ Johnston – stubbornly took the DIY road to gain their global cult status. They’ve done the hard yards and many more miles since.

The band’s name, incidentally, refers to an allegorical, imagined muse – a phantom‑like character in their musical story. It’s a title that’s appeared on countless gig posters. My research tells me they’ve clocked up about 835 shows, earning their reputation in the time‑honoured tradition: showing up, plugging in, and building respect one trance‑wig‑out at a time. I’ve seen this crew multiple times, and every one of those shows was a truly joyful experience.

And Aotearoa has taken them in like whānau. A sizeable following of Dutch ex‑pats, adults and parents always show up. My first time was back in 2018 when they rattled the rafters at Coastella Festival out on the Kāpiti Coast, and twice at WOMAD Taranaki where they delivered groove‑out, blissful, eyes‑closed communal sets under the hot festival sun. Tonight, amongst their usual crowd, there’d be a few who were missing WOMAD during its current off‑year hiatus, I imagine.

So, fresh from shows across the ditch at WOMADelaide 2026, their set was thick with the songs that have become their calling cards: Sunroof Diesel Blues, Juno Moneta, Agree 2 Disagree, Remedy, Seeing Red/It’s a Setup and Uprising, alongside new classics from this year’s release, Echo. That included the old‑timey Southern twang of Ain’t No Turnin’ Back, the heart‑thumping trippy groove‑ballad R U For Real, an amped‑up and driving rendition of Agree 2 Disagree, and the reggae‑tinged soul of Less Is More (on which the siblings share the mic).

Put together, their catalogue moves like a weather system – hurricane force, hot ’n’ heavy, humid, insistent, torrential. Well‑travelled, well‑practiced, the trio are a tightly wound unit. Joost van Dijck’s drumming is like a chant or a haka pulse – an economical maximalist beat that Dafreez can thread his needle through, switching deftly between desert‑blues grit, psychedelic riffs, James Brown‑show funk and slow‑drawl’n’dry slide guitar. Cato van Dijck’s basslines are like vines wrapping around the beat, climbing up the trunks and spreading their leaves of colour across the surface – but never choking.

The set begins with the slow grind of Shameless, then transitions to faster, more wigged‑out numbers, speeding up and slowing down at various moments such as the shift from the soulful 2025 album title track Echo into the disco‑tinge of Supernatural Aid and the raw, hypnotic grungy rhythms of Sunroof Diesel Blues. Like a dusty drive in an old Ford pickup, it’s all torque and no hurry. There are many moments when we get to join in. We sway and swagger, trip out, tap our glasses and slap our thighs in time.

In the mix has to be Seeing Red, their storm warning, with a firestorm of percussive paranoia and glory. It’s bookended by It’s a Setup, which slaps back up like an ice‑cold glass of amber after the dry wind’s died off.

The best moments come towards the end of the show when the band return to the stage to break out the loop‑trance of Smiley Virus. Strangers become a one‑time venue choir, singing at full lung, getting down and living it up. We are an organic mosh‑groove until the end. Dafreez totally kills it with a blistering blues‑psych solo that bends both air and time. The closing crescendo brings us back down to earth with a cymbal crash and we all dissolve into the night, sated on this hump‑day evening. We’ll be back, of course.

At their core, My Baby are blues minimalists with a DJ’s instinct for tension and release. They lock into a groove, letting the repetitive grooves work their magic. They know that a real show isn’t just a playlist – it’s a shared trip you ride together.

Full galleries:
My Baby
Graeme James

All photos by Finn Zemba for Muzic.nz.