10cc and Georgia Lines – Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre: July 12, 2025 (13th Floor Concert Review)
10cc brought their Ultimate Ultimate Hits Tour to Auckland last night and The 13th Floor’s Robin Kearns took to the ferry to find out if one original member makes a band. Chris Zwaagdyk provides photographic evidence.
On the ferry to the city, an acquaintance asks where I’m going. ‘So you’re going to a tribute band?’ ‘ No, the real deal, mate’. ‘But I heard there’s only one original left’. Oh well, I’ll let you know how it goes. I get to thinking: Is a band still a band with only one left? Lynyrd Skynyrd have no originals but still carry the name. Will 10cc seem like the full cc?
Georgia Lines
The loud lad behind me in the theatre says ‘I hope Hello Sailor’s opening act’. Out of luck buddy. But the rest of us seem delighted as Georgia Lines walks out and proceeds to cast a spell over the crowd. Reverence is the word as her voice soars across registers, sitting behind a keyboard emblazoned with her name.
‘Come back to me/ I’m scared to be alone’. Succinct lyrics and full-throttle gorgeous vocals. Its takes little persuasion to follow her into a nuanced emotional landscape.
A new song is based on the poem The Guest House by 13th Century poet, Rumi. Stunning, as is the performer, in purple and pink, bathed in pastel light.
Her banter offers warmth and connection. ‘What do you want – shall I do a song by Billie Eilish or one by Bonnie Raitt?’ Hold your phone lights up after the one you want and I’ll count. The Raitt enthusiasts won (unsurprising, perhaps, given the demographic) and Lines ignored a call-out for Wagon Wheel. The outcome? We are treated to a stunning rendition of I Can’t Make You Love Me.
The set ends with the lullaby Hine E Hine written by Princess Te Rangi Pai in 1907. Lines caresses every word of te reo with gentleness and care.
It’s a tough gig opening for an audience who are set on hearing a band from their past. But she wins over hearts tonight.
10cc
They arrive onstage to an electro-beat launching into the slightly madcap Second Sitting for the Last Supper. Zany changes in pace. Tight instrumentation. Exacting harmonies. This is the real deal.
The line-up’s Graham Gouldman (bass, guitar, vocals), Rick Fenn (lead guitar, bass, vocals), Paul Burgess (drums, percussion), Keith Hayman (keyboards, guitars, bass, vocals), and newcomer Andy Park (vocals, percussion, guitar, keyboards).
Next up there’s a lengthy preamble of intriguing prog-rock guitar from Fenn, before the unmistakable opening beat of Art for Arts Sake, Gouldman’s bassline driving the song.
Founding member Gouldman is centre-stage, blue-grey jacket and jeans. The picture of a loveable uncle, warmly introducing each song, attributing its authorship and what album it was from. No guesswork on this ‘ultimate hits’ tour – Graham’s our guide and no departures from the original arrangements.
Gouldman may be the last original, but he’s not the only long-timer. The band divided in 1976 with Kevin Godley and Lol Creme leaving to become a duo, averse to the band’s lurch towards commercial success. With Eric Stewart’s departure in 1995, Graham alone remains. But how ‘original’ do you have to be to have cred when their drummer Paul Burgess has there since 1973? Crikey, what age was I then? Let’s just call him an honorary original.
The most delightfully odd songs are these penned by Godley and Crème. In Life as Minstrone we hear Minnie Mouse has got it all sewn up/She gets more fan mail than the Pope. Anarchic English humour. Glorious harmonies from, sometimes, four of the five and with falsetto parts flawlessly taken by (relative) youngster Andy Park. (Old Wild Men seems a prescient choice for the setlist.)
And they are sure look like they are having fun. Clockwork Creep is another dose of madness. Lyrics of the variety you’d be unwise to utter in an airport. About ticking bombs on planes, imminent crashes, flirtatious pilots. Songs from another era jotted in less edgy times, maybe or under the influence of something to take the edge of life’s anxieties?
All the while Burgess watches over proceedings from his drum kit, looking like a a Gandalf asPark moves seamlessly from guitar to keyboards to percussion all in one song. There’s a whistling duet even.
It all lies deliciously between the satirical and the symphonic, Gouldman plucking bass and smiling in delight, probably because once again, half a century later, the band is playing these joyous songs. He gets a spotlight moment with Floating in Heaven co-written with astrophysicist and Queen alumnus Brian May. Old friends it seems, and May’s group was apparently influenced by 10cc’s multi-movement operatic style of song. The style 10cc started as art-pop experiment, Queen crowned with the immortal Bohemian Rhapsody.
Its pure pop silliness and dancing in the aisles with The Things we Do for Love, Andy Park waving a drum stick like a conductor’s baton, falsetto and prog guitar moments reminiscent of their more earnest contemporaries, Yes.
‘And now for something completely different’ says Park, invoking that Monty Python segue. And sure enough, it’s one ding of a call button sound and we know its I’m Mandy , Fly Me, that unrequited love letter to an elusively beautiful flight attendant.
End of set approaches and it’s their breakout hit I’m Not in Love. Dreamy, heart-achy harmonies. Gorgeous in its evocation of adolescent angst. But then stage lights break into the green and yellow colours of the Jamaican flag and another song that would be just that little bit un-PC if written in these ever-so-sensitive times: Dreadlock Holiday.
Encore and it’s a surprise: their first-ever single, Donna, sung as a four-part Barbershop quartet. Simply stunning harmonies with Gouldman, Park, Hayman and Fenn huddled centre stage, jokingly gesturing while reaching heights of harmonising. And then with Rubber Bullets it’s party time, audience up on their feet for a wildly jammed-up version and mayhem.
Tribute Band? I’ve got to find that guy on the ferry and say no way. This is the full cc still going strong almost half a century later, working through their songs with gusto and sounding as edgy and poppy as ever.
The genius of these songs is their durability and the genius of the band is their ability to keep the songs alive with such harmonies, enthusiasm and multi-instrumental genius.
Robin Kearns
Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:
10cc:
Georgia Lines:
10cc Setlist
The Second Sitting for the Last Supper
Floating in Heaven (Graham Gouldman song)
Encore:
