Festival Review: Great Sounds Great Part 1 @ Cuba Street Precinct, Wellington – 6/09/2025

Although Robert Scott kicked things off at Festival Records at 4pm, Great Sounds Great begun for me 45 minutes later, in the inspiring surrounds of St Peter’s Church. Festival producer Eyegum’s Joel Cosgrove is on hand to welcome us, and outgoing mayor Tory Whanau and outgoing Motukairangi/Eastern Ward councillor Teri O’Neill launch the proceedings, and talk up the vital importance of supporting live music to an absolutely converted choir. The festival has sold out earlier in the day.

Great Sounds Great’s relationship with St Peter’s is new this year, and it’s a very fortunate one. The historic church is a gorgeous music venue that plays its own part in elevating the spirits of performer and audience alike, and it’s hosting three acts well able to fill it, with both their personal presence and their adoring people. I took a spot in the front pew, and was glued to the proceedings for the next four hours.

Jazmine Mary and band are first up. The players are bathed in a cerise light that looks like it’s radiating from their leader’s shiny crimson, star spangled jumpsuit. Jazmine Mary is luminous, seeming to feed on the ambience of their surroundings as they settle into a necessarily too-short set. (It’s 45 minutes and you’re off – everyone packing themselves in and out – at a festival like this.)

“Playing music before 5PM,” they shake their head. “That’s crazy.”

Louisa Nicklin – on saxophone, bass and “all the things” – Arahi, on drums and samples, and Josh Worthington-Church on keyboards (where we saw Babe Martin, last time the band were in town), were cool and slinky, smoky and swingin’. It’s Nicklin’s blowing that will remain with me, long after the fact – long after all the bands – right from the climax of the opening number, Wet Mouth (from 2023 album Dog). The whole band – besuited, with Worthington-Church in his stocking feet – are masters of the subtly affecting touch, it’s deliciously hypnotic.

“I always wanted to lead a service,” Jazmine addresses the rapturing audience at one point, before declaring, “Dreams come true every day. It’s incredible stuff.”

Inspired, they lifted an outstretched finger, to sing the drawn out “I love you” lyric of Narcotics Anonymous Meeting, and it was a pure shivers moment. Memphis, Felt Fantastic, and Back of the Bar… those magical vocals, being tossed to all corners of the rafters. June was sublimely realised, but without the complete co-operation of a briefly employed flute. All the better for Mary to realise it on electric guitar then, not to mention the glory of opening their arms to the ether, to really belt out the vocal. The smile they gave to the lines, “God, I love this city / It saved my life…” felt a little bit personal today. It’s clear there is a huge amount of love coming back from the full house. They closed with My Brilliance – and it really was such a brilliant set.

Hard to top, even, I thought. But here’s Shayne Carter, taking to the stage more alone than I’ve ever seen him. Just a solitary legend in black, plugging in an acoustic guitar. It was a little disconcerting, fresh as I was from a screening of Life In One Chord on my way to the festival, where I’d had my mind blown by the Straitjacket Fits footage shot at Mountain Rock in 1994 on a big screen – larger than life, and sucking me right back to the earlier gig, over 30 years after I’d been in that audience. The true majesty of Carter, however, is that there’s never any doubting he will deliver, in whatever context you put him.

He opened with a blistering Burn It Up, from the Fits’ 1993 album Blow. Standout Dimmer tracks included the bright menace of Pendulum, from 2001’s I Believe You Are A Star, Carter folding in on himself to tighten the necessary sonic screws. Evolution (from the same album) drew big cheers from an audience that looked like all their Christmases had come at once (aka, the typical adulation Carter elicits every time he starts bending a guitar neck). His vocals were sublime in their control.

He plugged a pending record with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and an upcoming score he’s done for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, before saying, “But anyway, back to the two chords, fuck yes!” So easily does he veer between utterly absorbed, exquisite delivery, and spiky banter, one is utterly blindsided when, without fanfare, he drops into the first delicate notes of his 1990 fan favourite Randolph’s Going Home, sending a tangible tremor of emotion surging through the crowd. Even denuded of Peter Jefferies’ unique drums, it’s unmistakable. I haven’t heard Carter playing it live in 30 years, and it’s not just an overwhelmingly high musical point of the set, or the festival, but of my music life – almost unbearably moving.

Born and raised on Kaurna land, in Tandanya (Adelaide), Jen Cloher (Ngāpuhi & Ngāti Kahu) has recently moved to Ōtaki, and begun formally studying Te Reo Māori. Listeners could see this development flowing into Cloher’s songwriting around the release of their album I Am the River, The River is Me in 2023. This increasingly integral part of their songwriting is enthusiastically embraced here tonight. Regional Echo (from the self-titled 2017 album) set the scene of where Cloher grew up, and you can really sense the regional schism… “Noisy mynahs bully the suburbs / Out beyond the haze / Seaside holiday houses lay / Quiet as a grave…”

The vibes are sure to sit well with Courtney Barnett fans – perhaps unsurprisingly, given Cloher’s previous long relationship with Barnett. They mention their former partner while introducing Feels Like A Forest, which Barnett and Kurt Vile covered, apparently making Cloher “lots of money”. They get lost in the song, and we follow. It’s powerful to witness how much emotion Cloher can wring out of just two amped acoustic guitars (one smaller – which comes in handy when they break the strings on the regular-sized model).

Cloher takes time between songs to address the important issues their songs raise, thoughts around gender nonconformity, race, genocide, and injustice. They are as much a storyteller and teacher as they are a singer-songwriter or entertainer.

“It’s always fun to sing gay shit in a church,” they say by way of presaging Mana Takātapui, which they dedicate to outgoing Green MP Benjamin Doyle. Everyone heartily joins in on the chorus. The audience also picks up on the “Tino rangatiratanga” demand of the closing number, Being Human.

I feel like an entirely different person, leaving the church, following so many transformative performances. By a Damn Sight (B.A.D.S) are the next band on my list, at Hotel Bristol. It’s 8.45PM, so the band benefits from the night really getting swinging. Two electric guitars, plenty of pedals, bass, drums and vocals – all set to melodic drone, spiced with jangling – are moulding everyone into happy jelly, and plenty of people are on their feet, swaying to the swirly sounds.

They open strong with My Bells, from 2019’s A.I.R 01 (Ad Infinitum Recording 01). Second song, Wrote A Symphony, sees some people singing along, and the band going all shoegazey. One thing’s for sure; they don’t let the lyrics get in the way of a good instrumental section, and it’s pacing that’s absolutely transporting. Singer/songwriter/lead guitarist Louis Reeve can’t resist falling into a sea of shredding. As one song bleeds into another, sometimes the vibe is almost Western, and others, quite carnivalesque. These are cinematic sounds that go unexpected places. Water Water Everywhere is so lively it requires starting twice, but surely not for wont of the drummer’s enthusiasm. B.A.D.S. close with the epically chiming tones of Sharpen My Knives, with some great interplay between lead guitar and bass.

Behind Rogue & Vagabond – which is packed – and up the stairs to cosy Bedlam & Squalor is a lovely place to soak up a welcome boho, candlelit vibe, well-suited to its star. Sofia Machray is on stage sound-checking with a string quartet, wearing a big electric guitar, drawing an immediately hushed audience she thanks for their attentiveness, even though the actual show hasn’t started. She is instantly recognisable as a revelation, and it felt like great fortune to witness the innovation of her musical setting. Apparently she and the band had only rehearsed a couple of times – one member never with Machray at all! But it is plain we are in the presence of one of the most accomplished groupings of musicians we will see tonight. It is quite jazz, the way they are beaming at, making way for, and appreciating one another. Machray says she feels very emotional, standing listening to the strings playing around her, and the audience agrees.

This shimmering set includes a gorgeous take on Hope Sandoval’s Feeling of Gaze, and an unreleased song called Only When. A powerful version of 2021 single Milky Ways, Crumbs, from the 2023 Language of Flowers EP, and 2024 single Pulling on a String form a pattern of reminders, Machray is consistently producing incredibly strong material. The latter song gives Machray pause to reflect on its origins, found during a getaway to Waikawa Beach. She hails from Arrowtown, and acknowledges the adjustments required to live in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, along with how at home the gig is making her feel, so receptive is the audience to her entirely unique vibe. She closes with Between Now and Then, from Language of Flowers, another singer songwriter looking back to the land they grew up in, as their roots are watered in different sand and soil. I have a strong feeling Machray will go a lot further too.

I am on my way home, all soothed and warmed — but with a dash of ‘come alive, feel the night’ (and all thanks to Machray) – when I hear a merry racket coming from Hotel Bristol that I simply must investigate. So, it is hello (if briefly) BADTAB, circa 10.30PM, and the place is going off. People are actually screaming in the audience, and I am not surprised. These guys are a hell of a lot of fun.

BADTAB are surfy, spacey, psychedelia, full of swagger, soul and groove. Frontman Ethan Downing has got it absolutely all going on. And that mad boffin in front of me on knob twiddling – what is he up to? They’re the kind of band that give being young and carefree an excellent name indeed. Very refreshing. Even more heartening, the keyboard player is wearing a keffiyeh, with a Palestine flag hanging from his keyboard. It’s moments like these that make me proud to live in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. The night crackling with freedom of expression, in all its many stripes. Thank you, Eyegum. Great Sounds Great was such a vibe.

Photo Gallery Part 1 – Jayden Bradshaw
Photo Gallery Part 2 – Tim Gruar