Gig Review: Sola Rosa @ San Fran, Wellington – 6/06/2026

“Forty-two years, and I’ve never missed a gig,” Andrew Spraggon told me after tonight’s almost-capacity gig at San Fran, Wellington. We were chatting after the wrap up about the tour he’s just completed. Most of it went well. Except New Plymouth, apparently. “That was a weird one,” he says, “Because of bad weather both my plane from Auckland and Wallace’s from Pōneke were turned around. We got a van and drove down but Wallace couldn’t make it.” They improvised apparently, using backing tracks. “The audience didn’t seem to mind,” he said.

And we didn’t ‘mind’ tonight either. We were all in the house to hear the new tunes from Sola Rosa’s new project In The Mids – another instant classic. The room was heaving with bodies young and older, turning out on a damp, wet Welly night for some dance floor action. Local two-piece Lebowlski warmed us up with nice, simple and straight beats and vocals. I caught two completely different tracks – Overlords (which was a razor sharp dig at the wealthy, ruling classes) and in complete contrast, a deep house banger called Runaway. Lebowlski, by their own admission, mix up the house with no fixed abode, as they couch-surf as many different styles as you’ve had late night kebabs. “We have no social media presence or recordings to speak of but we love music. We go by the grace of God and good beats”.

Mikki Dee heads up the regular Saturday-night jams on Radio Active as part of The Jewel School, and he was up next to fill in time and pump up the jams. He loaded up the turntables with a nice juicy slice or two of world beats and pieces and some choice local mixes, including a track by Island Bay’s finest, Louis Baker. Nothing was off limits and sensing the room had plenty of children of the 80’s, closed his set with a disco-fied Culture Club cut that he must have rescued from the skip when the old Exchequer Nightclub closed down last century. A cool nod to the past, for those that know.

When the main event began, it was Creature Post creative director Lakshman Anandanayagam’s graphics that took centre stage. Moving around a grid of colours and geometric shapes that seemed to distort the image of an MPC board, they were a constant torrent of vibrancy, whilst lurking in the shadows, Andrew hovered about his laptop and controllers driving the beats.

Adding texture to the beats, Matt Sawyer provided congas, chimes, and plenty of other percussive wizardry. On the vocals, the Capital’s own Wallace Gollan (AKA Wallace) took charge delivering perfect interpretations of tracks not only from Sola Rosa’s latest drop, but plenty of classics from the wider repertoire. She’s well familiar with working with Andrew Spraggon, having collaborated with him on past projects, including Chasing The Sun. Her smoky, laid-back style added a welcome new perspective to tracks originally voiced by Blush’ko, Iva Lamkum, AKOSIA, and others from the Sola Rosa roll call. Standouts for me were a mix of greatest oldies and newbies: Spinning Top, Humanised, We Are The Enemy and newer stuff like Losing Time, How Do You (which was written for her) and What You Need all delivered the goods. The room was pumping – hands up and faces beaming. And when they kicked into Iva Lamkum’s Jupiter and later Turn Around the room totally lit up. That one closed the set. But encores had to happen as the team quickly returned.

“This one’s for Katrina,” Andrew announced, as he cued up the mariachi horns for one of his all-time classics, Del Ray. With some extra heavy bass thump it took us home with a fine-fettled groove.

Spraggon’s Sola Rosa project has always impressed me, from the earliest days of the Solarized album right up to this gig tonight. Loved it. Hope to see more. He may feel he’s In the ‘Mids’, but I reckon it’s more like he’s in his prime! 42 years of gigging is a pretty impressive road tally. But I hope Andrew Spraggon’s got more in the tank for next time because we, down here in Poneke, are definitely looking forward to seeing him back here.

Photo Credit: Tim Gruar for Muzic.NZ
Photo Gallery: Sola Rosa @ San Fran, Wellington – 6/06/2026