Homesickness at the Auckland Old Folk's Association,
Saturday 24 August 2024
Photographs by Trelise Sumich
Full feature by Elle Daji
Homesickness and Nostalgia are two friends I often leave at home to avoid yearning for inaccessible moments gone by. However, Homesickness, at Old Folks Association this past Saturday forced me back to my teenage self of weekends spent circulating the all ages scene. With an astonishing eight acts on the lineup I was geared up for a cracker evening.
Homesickness: a gig nostalgic for a time when gigs were simpler. The project of Sweet Home Collective’s Sian Fenwick and Jordan Lim. After returning from a stint in Naarm, Fenwick sought to create a show around their nostalgia for live music.
My friend and I meandered to the gig part way between dusk and twilight. A respectable number of wines deep, we buzzed with anticipation for the night's antics.
The community hall is transformed into a characteristic flat living room, with lamps, rugs and a ‘homesickness’ banner hanging behind the stage. The lamps create a warm soup of light for the audience to disappear into. It’s the type of crowd that feels uninhibited by the normative antisocial behaviour cultivated by lockdown and intense mobile phone use. People of every age are out with the shared ambition of sinking their teeth into a hunger-busting lineup.
Arielwose
The hall has been filled with the indie-pop guitar musings of Arielwose. She’s an indie-pop solo voice and guitar who has been faithfully making her rounds of the gig scene the past few years. She has a mesmerising presence on stage, urging the crowd to listen in closer. I find it easy to get lost in the vulnerability of her alto voice, especially sans band. With lyrics discussing anxiety and friendships, Ariel has honest and relatable stories to divulge.
It is nice to hear an artist ditch verbose metaphors in exchange for honest and raw sentiments. The bridge in ‘October’ perfectly encapsulates the ideas behind this venture: ‘I’ve spent all this time running away, but I think this time I'd like to stay.’ It’s a cover of Drive by Bic Runga that reduces me to a few tears; it’s too early in the piece to blame it on alcohol. My friend turns to me and tells me she would die for this song.
Rachel Ashby, of 95bFM Breakfast fame, hastily rushes past me with a kettle. Don’t worry this will be relevant later.
Elliot and Vincent
After their debut single, they spent some well-deserved time kicking around the 95bFM Top 10; not that I’m picking favourites, but I had the most anticipation for the guitar-drums duo. Elliot's energetic, liberating vocal stylings meld with Vincent's raw and gritty guitar performance. Elliot dashes off stage to get a tambourine, very demure. It’s easy to forget that only a guitar and drums are being played as they achieve such a full, rounded, and complex sound; maybe it's the tambourine. They close out their set with Doberman, the song of my winter. The crowd moved in time with their blistering yet stripped-back sound. Someone hijacks my notebook and writes, “they fucking rock,” and I’m inclined to agree.
Rachel Ashby, firefighter or radio host? As I found out later, the kettle was to put out a fire in a nearby bin. With the number of emo-smokers outside, it was inevitable. We all owe our lives to Rachel; where’s her medal?
Salt Water Criminals
Crafted in the melting pot that is Ōtepoti Salt Water Criminals is a band I implore you to experience live. A thrashing performance, the band and audience alike sliding around on rugs, a raucous crowd colliding . The Adult is a punky-emo number, full of muddied distorted vocals and heavy guitar. The bedroom recording origins of Rueben Scott’s solo work come through with a stormy sound well rooted in the collective experience of rangatahi. They are joined by Theo Salmon on guitar for ‘My Greatest Achievement,’ the second Daffodils cameo of the night. It was gorgeous spinning my friends around in the noisy vibrations; I forgot to write many notes for this one. I think this means that you’ve got to make it to a live Salt Water Criminals gig. The band is a fitting precursor to the dynamic and spirited acts to come.
Roy Irwin
Roy Irwin comes out to play a solo set, guitar in hand, which says, ‘Fuck Nazi Sympathy.’ Roy’s rich textures act as a breather between two rather noisy acts. It’s nice to hear the distorted bedroom production out live; everyone’s mesmerised. People drift in and out of the hall to chatter and whatnot, but they all get pulled in by Irwin’s entrancing melodies. I’m reminded of how good Awful and Warm are, two songs off Self Titled. Urged on by river-like rhythms and plucky guitar lines, Awful is the opposite of how I’m feeling as my friends, and I scurry off at the end of the set. Due to the all-ages circuit, we are in search of soju.
P.H.F
Hold on to your docs, “this isn’t music, idiot. It’s motherfucking P.H.F.” Genre defiant P.H.F is the project of composer and producer Joe Locke. After listening to many of his electronic, noisy guitar tunes on the radio, I was unsure what to expect from a P.H.F. live show. The atmosphere was as though we had left the Old Folks Association and entered the pink-tinged world of ‘Load,’ Locke’s latest release. P.H.F. has the striking ability to create a sonically complex and hypnotically fun atmosphere while delving into viscerally emotional themes. It is easy to get a little dazed and full of awe within the electronic noise. I don’t know whether to laugh, dance or cry. I don’t think the crowd does either. Catharsis permeates the experience as friends cling to each other, throwing their weight into strangers and maniacally displacing their limbs. I catch a glimpse of masc-presenting dancers skipping in a style similar to ring-a-ring-a-rosies; it's very sweet. Now Locke is lying on the floor, and I’m left wanting more. My friend turns to me and asks if I “feel emo now.” Yeah, girl, absolutely, in the best way.
Cindy
Completely new to Cindy, I have Rubbage Rat written at the top of my page. Mint Chicks comparison aside, I think I’ll never find the park they knocked me out of. My friend and I stood on the seats at the back to bask in Cindy’s noisy glory. It was hard to see where the band started, and the crowd began, the performance a pas-de-deux between the two. Bodies melding into amorphous patterns. 2 Star Restaurant has an addictive chorus of ‘I miss my 2-star restaurant’ paired with a clean ripper of a guitar solo. Beach plays, and it sounds like summer at the beach, for lack of better phrasing. This song is being played on a cold, slightly past winter night, and I yearn for the summer. A couple of songs later, ‘Deathamphetamine,’ a strong distorted addition to their big punky garage set. The banner emblazoned with ‘Homesickness’ has fallen; maybe it was dancing too hard.
Ringlets
Ringlets close out our night. They start with the last song of their self-titled album, ‘Born Angry.’ They ask if the crowd is hungry and say, ‘The soup of the day is potato and leek soup.’ I slightly feel as though I’ve missed a joke, but I giggle anyway. The next dish they say is “boiled scampi with a Worcestershire reduction” and is served alongside the absolute banger, I Am Pudding. Ringlets have a slew of loud, angsty numbers in their discography with a slither of pop sensibilities. Thematically unclear yet digestible lyrics intertwine tightly with their grunge, gritty lyrics. Closing out their set is I Used to Paint, a melancholic song that may spur on an existential crisis but is nonetheless a good time. It’s a fitting way too close out the night
Someone’s passed out on the bench, a concoction of vomit and cigarettes lingers in the air, and the moon is just past its highest point. Instead of nauseating, I’m elated and transported back a few years to high school. Homesickness is the cure for all nostalgia. You would have thought that after 9 acts, we would all want to head in for the night. Yet we sit on the pavement and discuss the night’s festivities. Artists drifted on and off the stage, mingling with the crowd and old friends reuniting and bumming cigarettes off each other. A gorgeous evening brimming with aroha for the live scene full of the greatest achievements of homegrown talent. Strangers mingling and dancing during a capricious time for music. You should regret not going. And if you’re reading this, it's too late. See you at the next one?
95bFM 
