Me First and The Gimme Gimmes – The Powerstation, March 15, 2019 (Concert Review)

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With a 24-song, genre-bending setlist, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes provided Friday’s Powerstation crowd with unwavering banter, irresistible punk covers, and a timely reminder that music is our universal language of joy.

Friday, March 15, 2019 was a day of united grief across New Zealand, and the early crowd at The Powerstation embodied the drained and heartbroken atmosphere felt across the nation. It’s never easy playing a gig when your crowd aren’t sure they should even be there, and it would be as impossible not to mention that here as it was for opening support act, Dead Beat Boys. Lead singer, James Fitz, expressed his dismay at the day before delivering a much-needed, full-energy performance to a floor-crowd of 20 that was deserving of 10 times the attendance.

Fire For Glory managed to build on that initial buzz with equal energy and enthusiasm. Between the band’s heavy guitar riffs and his post-hardcore vocals, lead singer Josh Pinho drew the growing crowd together for a ‘Happy Birthday’ sing-along for their bassist, Bex Tasker. There was strained encouragement for the crowd to ‘jump around and have fun’, but little to envy in being booked to perform to that initial crowd. That they managed to half-fill the lower floor of the venue was an admirable feat in itself.

The half-hour wait for Me First and The Gimme Gimmes was a gamble on the crowd’s moderate energy, but one that ultimately paid off when a flash of stage lights and a heavy drum roll delivered four of the band – decked out in matching white pants and bright pink shirts and ties – to the immediately eager crowd. Lead singer and comedic-banter king, Spike Slawson, soon joined them on stage in a full, white suit and black Ray-Bans, as the band kicked off with Cher’s ‘Believe’. Waving a microphone stand wrapped in golden tinsel, he let the now-packed venue know they had ‘one more song – a cover’ to play.

The Gimmes are a punk rock supergroup exclusively performing covers with catchy, feel-good intensity, but it was the power of their comedic interactions that the crowd desperately needed and so visibly appreciated. By the time they reached Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard, much of the audience was singing along and jumping with renewed energy and enthusiasm. Paula Abdul’s Straight Up (‘from our brand-new record that came out five years ago – it’s like these songs write themselves’) was next to receive the classic, thrashing punk treatment, until Jolene saw the crowd embraced in full, eyes-closed, voice-straining participation.

A mid-set introduction of the band led to an encouraged crowd chant of ‘Jerry! Jerry!’ at Joey Cape on rhythm guitar, who suffered an equipment malfunction during Nobody Does It Better but still strummed along with hilarious enthusiasm. Fixed in the final seconds of the song – ‘I’m back guys! Let’s do Nobody Does It Better!’ – the finger-sychning performance and comment were a reminder that, for The Gimmes, the charisma and humour in their performance is just as appealing as the songs themselves.

Dirty and heavy renditions of Leaving on a Jet Plane and Uptown Girl (‘We’re glad you like Billy Joel, Auckland, because we don’t’) are nearly overpowered by the audience’s unified singing, before a hair-shaking, body-spinning Sloop John B and Rocket Man leave even the most serious-faced members of the crowd singing along with happy abandon.
Closing out with a phenomenal, high-energy encore of I Will Survive, End of The Road, and a Don’t Dream It’s Over instrumental led entirely by crowd vocals, The Gimmes delivered just a fraction of their extensive discography, but a brilliantly funny and feel-good setlist that gave a small crowd in Auckland the chance to unite, sing, and dance together – something they so desperately needed, and were just as immensely grateful for.

Oxford Lamoureaux

Click on any image to see a full gallery for each band, by Rachel Van Luyt.

Me First + The Gimme Gimmes

Fire For Glory

Dead Beat Boys

Setlist:

Believe (Cher)
Heart of Glass (Blondie)
Danny’s Song (Loggins and Messina)
Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)
Straight Up (Paula Abdul)
Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel)
(Ghost) Riders In The Sky (Johnny Cash)
Jolene (Dolly Parton)
Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (Madonna)
Karma Chameleon (Culture Club)
Who Put The Bomp (Barry Mann)
Nobody Does It Better (Carly Simon)
On The Road Again (Willie Nelson)
Most People I Know Think I’m Crazy (Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs)
Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
Uptown Girl (Billy Joel)
Sloop John B (The Beach Boys)
Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Glenn Miller)
Rocket Man (Elton John)

Encore:

Untitled (The Saints)
Summertime (Ella Fitzgerald)
I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)
End Of The Road (Boyz II Men)
Don’t Dream It’s Over – Instrumental (Crowded House)

Oxford Lamoureaux
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