Auckland Town Hall had a jovial atmosphere, with a quick and easy process to get into the venue, short lines to the bar, and no lines to the toilet. A well set up venue, but the main reason that everything worked so well was obvious when you enter the Great Hall. The lower floor felt maybe three-quarters full, with nobody bar the photographers on the upper balcony. Perhaps the effects of having multiple shows and splitting their audience, but it’s still good to see a band stopping by in multiple cities, and still able to make use of the larger venues each time.

The last rock show I attended at the Auckland Town Hall was Rise Against, which had some pretty horrific sound quality from the cheap seats (obviously referring to the GA standing floor where there are no seats), but the speaker stacks in that case were much more extensive, so looking at the set-up tonight, I remain hopeful that the sound will be much better quality, if not as loud.

Opening act for the night comes in the form of Auckland duo, Skinny Hobos, who have just released their debut album, and are mid-tour themselves. An interesting choice, when considering much of the audience would not be away of their music, they started with the long, slow-building Sevenatenine. You could sense much of the crowd were initially unsure how to receive the band, and they watched the unhurried, vocal-free start to the performance, but once Alex Ferrier started his vocals and things sped up, every head in the crowd was moving. 

The Skinny Hobos addressed the crowd, introducing themselves and laid out their plan for the night, “We are Skinny Hobos. We just released our debut album. We are going to play songs from that album”. The vocals were a little bit off in Suburban Living, with some volume irregularities, but soon enough it all came right, and the set continued without further issue. They made sure to include 3 of their hit singles with Jacked Like the Ripper getting some great reactions from the crowd upfront. With one song left to play, they realised they had some time up their sleeve, and pulled off an impromptu cover of Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole, before closing off the set with their debut single, Merchant of Tirau. A solid performance, that looked brilliant with the constant backlighting of the wandering spotlights behind them creating silhouettes in a wall of colour.

The crowd milled about as the sound techs and roadies switched equipment and completed some extensive tests on all of the equipment. Unfortunately, the tests clearly weren’t extensive enough, as the following set was plagued by feedback issues on the microphone. A sudden flash of light, and Seether took to the stage, breaking straight into Stoke The Fire. Lighting from the front remained off for most of the set, with Seether enveloped in darkness against the backlighting. A brilliant light show but was definitely a Tool-esque style of continuing to be hidden from view despite being on stage. The set was full electric, and unlike the performance back in 2012 that was more acoustic and had the bridge of every song stretched out by 5-10 minutes, this 2018 performance was to the books, and followed the studio recordings that we all know and love, with minimal stray.

They performed a wide selection of tracks from their discography, with all albums represented, though Disclaimer did make up over a quarter of the set. The crowd were really getting into it and were chanting along with the choruses of the hits new and old; from Gasoline, Fine Again, and Fake It to Rise Above This and Let You Down. Despite it being a tour to promote their latest release Poison the Parish, there were only three songs from the album, and they had all been played in the first six songs. From that point on it was the “Greatest Hits” of Seether (nine tracks from the setlist were on their best-of album Seether: 2002-2013).

Seether is one of the few 90’s bands that are still going and holding true to that grunge/alt-rock sound that they are known for. Evolving slightly, they have managed to maintain that core sound that is so categorically Seether. Vocalist Shaun Morgan barely acknowledges the audience, and the band banter is virtually non-existent, but the crowd do not care, because that means we have more tracks jammed into the small time that we have them on stage. Apart from the frustratingly frequent mic feedback issues, Seether’s set was heavy and full-bodied. 

With a drummer, vocals and backing vocals, most of the band do not move around much on stage, but the quality of their performance had the crowd pulsating and writhing as they sung along. Morgan pulled out the acoustic guitar for a solo rendition of Broken, in which he was out-sung by the audience, and ended up letting them take the reins for most of the song. There is little else to say. Regardless of how good the show was, it was consistent enough to be no real standout moments. The whole show went well, and the crowd loved it. Not bothering with an encore, they just played all the way through ending the night on Fake It and an extended version of Remedy. Not a bad way to spend your Thursday night.

_{Review written by Alex Moulton}

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