Brooke Fraser - Gig Review: Brooke Fraser @ Wellington Opera House - 26/06/2015
There was certainly something in the water at the Wellington opera house on a cold winters tonight. Could Brooke Fraser warm up the packed crowd? I was five rows from the front, surrounded by a really mixed crowd; young, old, male, female. I don't know what I was expecting, but that wasn't it. As dry ice descended from a black lifeless stage the crowd cheered. On walked the keyboard player Max followed by the heavily pregnant Brooke Fraser. Apart from two blue lasers at the back of the stage there wasn’t anything else except black. For a lively dance artist I expected something more.
Brooke opened with a great voice, however she kept tapping on a keyboard. It looked fake and appeared to not coincide with anything, all for show perhaps?
Brooke had a cup of tea on stage and was obviously very proud of the fact that she was going to give birth in a few weeks. She was also very proud to be back in New Zealand and thanked the audience on several occasions. She even invited the audience up to dance at the front whether the Opera House wanted this or not, a brave move. This vastly improved the stagnant atmosphere.
Personally Brooke needed a backing band and the basic backing track karaoke session just didn’t work. Even the seated audience added to the mundane affair and some backing vocals were pre-recorded. Overall it felt like a bit of a rip off.
Having said all of that she seemed like a wonderful lady, entertaining and funny at times with a great voice. Die-hard fans I'm sure loved it, for everyone else, I'm not so sure.
The very 80s disco demanded the obligatory on the beat clapping that always ends in disaster, thankfully it didn’t happen.
When the acoustic guitar came out half way through the set, at least it sounded real.
Overall, very unimpressed and not what I expected from a successful performer of this calibre.
About Brooke Fraser
Her 2003 debut album What To Do With Daylight was an eight-times platinum success story in her native New Zealand that earned Brooke her first pair of New Zealand Music Tui Awards and saw her share the stage with artists like David Bowie, opening on his New Zealand tour in 2004.
The title track to her 2006 follow-up album Albertine celebrated her passion for Africa while the songs spread further across the airwaves. Radio stations in Australia and America were in the thrall of Shadowfeet. An Editors Choice at iTunes in the US helped Albertine climb as high as #5 on the charts and the album clocked up five times platinum sales in New Zealand, matching her debut effort’s gold sales in Australia. With the album title track winning New Zealand’s prestigious songwriting award, the APRA Silver Scroll and a further three Tui’s at the NZ Music Awards.
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Brooke Fraser
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