Making his debut in the Small Halls milieu, Louis Baker entranced the audience at Tikokino hall with an intensely soulful performance, setting a perfect tone for Te-Matau-a-Maui’s extra-long weekend. With a paradoxical combination of strength and fragility, his performance drew them in, kept them engaged, and gave them many tales to tell to those who weren’t there.

He opened with Birds, a song written when he was 18, thinking deeply of philosophy and biology and channelling Jeff Buckley vibes in its emotional vulnerability. Brighter Day , with its lyrics taking the construct of an imaginary letter, related the experiences of his Koro in WW2-a man he never met but whose words lived on through the letters that he wrote during the time.

Louis commented on the stripped down setting allowing him to play quieter songs than he might normally with a band accompaniment. This chilled-out vibe gave the opportunity for audience participation (always a highlight of the Sessions), playing stage left and right off against each other in a singalong to the funky Overdrive. Another benefit of such an intimate setting is the ability to stretch out and pay tribute to influences, firstly by singing What’s Going On?. A song from a time of great uncertainty, commenting on much pointless death and division, along lines that are, all said and done, quite arbitrary and enforced the most by powerful elites to prop up the machine of war. So, pleasingly, not anything that we can relate to in these days! The song itself was certainly not disgraced by this rendition, but given the respect it deserves, while still allowing Louis to inflect his own personal touches-a worthy tribute.

Returning to originals, the song Rainbow, drawn from a time of emotional upheaval, continued the theme of fragility and vulnerability, all expressed with a fittingly delicate touch. The new Fool’s Expectation married a languid pace with a chunky instrumentation and soulful vocals. Eventually it was back to the mine of inspiration, this time for a version of Bill Withers’ Lovely Day, played fairly straight, but led out with an impromptu and improvised guitar solo that even managed to honour Stevie Ray! This boy can play!!

Te Utu O Te Aroha, which loosely translates as "the price of love", a meditation on the compromises and sacrifices necessary in order to maintain relationships, led in to Medicine, the title track of the new album. This is a simple retelling of the power of music ("Music is my Medicine"), a fact to which all present could attest, and could be said to be attesting to by virtue of their very presence!

Black Crow, nothing to do with the Southern band of the 90's, but instead a relating of the joys of mental health issues, caused Louis to reflect that he "needs to start writing happy songs"! But all present were certainly happy with what they were hearing, so maybe that’s not an urgent need. In a final return to the well of inspiration, Louis talked of a song that he doesn’t often play, as much as he may love it-and that song was, to the delight of many present, Purple Rain! Given an extremely appropriate airing, one which captured its essence perfectly, only lacking the extended guitar solo -but that can be something to work on...

We then came back to original songs, in the form of The People, a plea for commonality of understanding amongst diverse cultures. But still, before we were ready, came the finale, Make a Change, an anthem of hope for the power of collective will, and in that way a companion piece to the previous song. The end was held at bay, for a while, by Louis’ extended guitar solo, but even he could only hold out so long, and then the house lights were coming on and it was time to hit the merch stand! Brisk sales ensued, many wanting a sample to take home and remember the evening by. And you too can experience such an evening, one to add to the memory banks, by heading to smallhallsessions.co.nz, and getting tickets for the last show (the others being sold out!) in Puketapu on Sunday night. Don’t sleep on this one, the retrospective FOMO may be too sharp!

Photo Credit: Andrew Caldwell

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