Gig Review: Poneke Unplugged @ Newtown Community Hall, Wellington – 14/06/2025

During the 90’s MTV’s Unplugged series generated some of the most spectacular live performances of the decade. By stripping away the electric vigour and layered production that was such a part of the overall sound, emphasis was placed on the musicians themselves and their individual performance.

It was this concept that inspired Bottom Bunk Club’s Jake Bergström to put on and host Poneke Unplugged at Newtown’s Community Hall on Saturday night, showcasing a diverse mix of Wellingtonian acts in a stripped back more intimate setting.

Aside from the acts themselves, two things in particular stood out:

The sound:

Having recently undergone a monumental upgrade, the sound in Newtown’s Community Hall is an acoustic masterpiece, with a max capacity of 135 people, it’s rare to have such care and attention put into the acoustics of what is a comparatively small venue, and when you couple this with the sound engineering talents and personal gear of music veteran Pete Jameson what you end up with is a truly magnificent sonic experience.

The Vibe:

Unlike a bar or a dedicated music venue that have their own inherent ambiance, a hall is a blank canvas and the wrong approach can leave the gig feeling like an awkward high school production and the right one can elevate the night far above that of your usual Saturday night band line up. This was by far the latter. Acting as MC Jake was able to bring context and consistency to the theme highlighting the intention as he introduced the bands and creating a sense in the audience that they were watching a show rather than just a series of bands.

First up was Katelyn Henshall, Yellow Rooms had to unfortunately pull out last minute, but the short notice did nothing to hamper Katelyn’s mesmerising performance. Opening slots can be tricky at the best of times, let alone being a solo acoustic act performing on a large stage to a still fully lit room, but Katelyn took the stage with a confident shyness, and by her second song she had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. Katelyn’s guitar playing is minimalistic, relying on lightly strummed dynamic chord progressions rather than intensity and creating a broad landscape for her to journey vocal melodies over while using poetic lyrics to further develop the scene.

Ultraviolet Scrapheap played next and they clearly had a fun time reorganising themselves into a drumless acoustic arrangement, bringing in a kahon, shakers and even a xylophone to fill out the percussive elements, which they used to create some fun and entirely unique renditions of Led Zep classics and their own original music.

Kaletta’s mix of brass, stings and percussion gave their set an eastern European punk feel in the vein of Gogol Bordello, their high energy rhythmic complexity and the massive sound generated by the trumpet and violin pulled the audience off their seats and provided a nice contrast to the prior more relaxed acts as well as providing a nice stepping stone into Bottom Bunk Club’s high intensity acoustic bluegrass-punk.

If you’re unfamiliar with them, Bottom Bunk Club has been building up a solid reputation following from their self-titled debut EP and its absolute banger of a single Godzilla. A four piece acoustic quartet that merges the fast paced melodies of bluegrass with the fierce social commentary and fuck you persona of punk rock. I’ve seen them play multiple times now and can easily say they are one of the best live acts on the scene right now, the members all have at least a decade of performance under their belts and it shows, their stage presence is engulfing drawing in the crowd and enrapturing them with tales of love and destruction, shoplifting and the joy of puking with your significant other.

This was without a doubt one of the most fun and original shows I have been to in a while and based on the audience reaction I’m sure I was not the only one. With plans in the works to make this a regular occurrence I’m excited to see the next line up and suspect this wee event could grow into a mainstay in the wellington music scene.