Festival Review: Go Live Festival Part 1 @ Christchurch Town Hall, Christchurch – 22/08/2026

Christchurch’s Go Live Festival is in its sixth year this year, and continues to improve year by year. Beginning in 2020 as a multi-venue event, the past several years have seen the festival contained entirely within the Christchurch Town Hall. The brainchild of Christchurch City Council’s Events and Arts team, the festival has become a cultural mainstay for The Garden City.

This year’s event was just as well organised and smoothly managed as its predecessors. Four different stages hosted 13 musical acts, from Alt Folk to Hair Metal, with a lot of diversity along the way.

The Yellow Stage was presented in conjunction with Radio Hauraki, and hosted by comedian and media personality Bec Sandys. First to take the stage were local favourites Volts, sadly playing their last ever show. Guitarist Marc Royal is not only a stalwart of the local music scene, having been a consistent well-known presence since playing at The Arena in Pages Road in the early 90’s with the legendary Absence Of Right, but is also one of the incredibly hard working driving forces behind the festival itself. So it was gratifying to see the large and lively crowd in attendance to bid farewell to the hometown heroes, joyously singing along to their favourite lyrics and dancing their socks off.

Volts came out swinging, bolting out of the gate with the powerhouse riffing of When You Go segueing into Make Up Your Mind, a quick one-two punch of slick, powerful melodic rock. Their set flew by all too fast, vocalist Lorna Coll holding the audience in the palm of her hand, Andy Knopp’s guitar playing the perfect counterpart to Royal’s, bassist Victoria Knopp and drummer Scott Mason-Cooper joining forces to make a rhythm section of undeniable force and thunderous groove. Victoria amply demonstrated that she’s also quite handy in the vocal department, with strong harmonies throughout the set. The lighting tech did them proud, the stage looked amazing as they tore through banger after banger. A fun surprise was had when they were joined by Jason Kerrison of OpShop to provide some backing vocals. Penultimate track Tokyo has a sexy little dual guitar solo break on top of already being laden with hooks, super stuff that. The obligatory end-of-set band pic taken from stage rear was sneaked in before the final song, fittingly being Wolves, their first single. A belter of a set from a kick-ass band, a fitting end wrought with emotion. Farewell, Volts.

One could be forgiven for wondering if it was Volts’ incendiary performance that was responsible for the fire alarm that started immediately afterwards, it resulted in the entire venue being evacuated until the fire crew attending had given the all-clear. Consequently, I felt for Push Push, as they were forced into a position of starting their set to a much-diminished crowd as people were still filtering back in. Their intro track morphed into an angelic chorus, before the band launched into some unbridled 80’s Hair Metal riffery, a palpable explosion of energy to start the set. It quickly becomes clear just how much fun these guys are having, and how much time and effort has gone into returning to form. Close your eyes, and it’s 1991 again!

Mikey Havoc was an absolute dynamo on stage, a captivating presence, a consummate frontman. The set wound its way through classic early tracks and more recent offerings, the newer songs aptly demonstrating that their songwriting has only improved with age, the crowd eating up tracks like the utter earwormery of Talk2me, and Sleep In The Morning. But let’s be honest here, there was one song in particular that everyone was fizzing at the bung to hear… and when Push Push ripped into Trippin’ for their final number of the night, the energy in the room went stratospheric. Absolutely worth the 35 years this reviewer has waited to see that song performed live. A band still firing on all cylinders, still writing great songs, and still performing as if their lives depended on it. The audience was left feeling A Trillion Shades Of Happy.

Massive thanks to Christchurch City Council for staging the event, long may it continue.

Main Photo Credit: Volts by Rahil Uddin
Gallery 1 by Nina fon McMillin
Gallery 2 by Rahil Uddin