Filling the role of Local Support Band were Ahuriri’s Mirrored Walls, with a sound deeply reminiscent of a not-so-long ago era, i.e. around about 15-odd years ago, in the time of MCR, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and their ilk, while leavened through with some heavier elements, calling to mind the likes of A Day to Remember. As overt as the influences may be, though, they meld them together to make something quite new, complemented nicely by a strongly melodic guitar interplay and spiced with bursts of synth. I’ve been aware of their existence for a while, without having encountered them, but based on this performance I’ll look forward to seeing them again around the traps!

With a mission statement of being “here to fuck shit up”, it should come as no surprise that Te-Whanganui-A-Tara’s Cherry Punch bring some serious attitude to their performance (in a very fun way, of course!) When the opening line of the first song is Fuck You, you know you’re not exactly about to experience a night of gentle reverie, quietly contemplating the nature of existence! Lead singer Cherry channels a vocal style with echoes of some of the greatest female voices of the punk genre, e.g. Siouxsie, Patti Smith , Poly Styrene, etc, filtered through the Riot Grrl era via the likes of L7 and Shonen Knife, while prowling the stage with leonine grace and a sense of potential danger. Boys, she just might cut something off, but she’ll smile at ya while she does it! Meanwhile guitarist Emily pumps out a constant stream of beautiful noise, unfussily supplying strong Stooges-via-grunge vibes to the enterprise, without ever being too dramatic about it. Drummer Nate and bassist Cody were similarly business-like (in a very good way), all of the instrumentalists doing their thing in support of the powerhouse that is Cherry! It’s no surprise to me that the band performed a support slot to the Schizophonics on their recent tour, both bands sharing a similarly hyperactive and mesmerising presence. And they’re all really lovely people too!

After such a rowdy scene-setting, it was time for the BUMs to show us their stuff. The audience had dwindled even further by this stage, but that was their loss, quite frankly! Wisely eschewing any attempt to match physically the amount of energy unleashed thus far, they let their instruments do the talking-just one loud, chunky and upside-down guitar and a drum kit! While it might seem, given such a set-up, that The White Stripes would be a lazy and obvious comparison point, at the same time they’re not a bad place to start. A similarly back-to-basics, blues-inflected style is on display here, and there’s nothing wrong with that! A drummer pounding the shit out of the skins, a guitarist cranking out the blues-many a great combo has sprung from such a source! This is a band that is less than a year old, but such is the quality and power of their playing that you’d be forgiven for thinking they'd been together for years.

After a tantalisingly brief set, which seemed almost to be over before it started (the players citing the need to travel to Gisborne the next day), that was it for the night. 3 powerful bands, 2 of which will be moving on from here and could well be playing at a venue near you-thoroughly worth the price of admission indeed, and well worth catching if High Voltage rock ’n’ roll is what you seek! (If quiet reverie is what you’re after, best look elsewhere-far be it from me to suggest any names though...)

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