13/09/2025

Paul Kelly & Reb Fountain – Auckland Town Hall: Sept. 12, 2025 (13th Floor Concert Review)

The bard is back. When Paul Kelly walks out, it feels like seeing an old friend: the long-time lyrical laureate from across the ditch. The next most well-known Kelly after Ned, toting a guitar not a gun. Legendary in his own way.

He opens on piano with Houndstooth Dress from 2024 album Fever Longing Still (his 29^th, recorded here at Roundhead Studios) and I’m reminded of the first time I saw him perform. It was in 2002 and he opened for Bic Runga at the Civic. The ultimate act of humility: a long-established artist supporting an emerging songwriter’s first big show.

Tonight, it’s further up the road within the cosy baroque architecture of the Town Hall that Paul and band crank into action. We’re more blessed than Melburnians whose tour stop was a the vast Rod Laver Arena…

Reb Fountain

First up it’s Auckland-based Reb Fountain, sporting an arm in recovery, laughing it off as a shark attack, her sling a billboard for a Palestinian flag. Owning the stage with one-armed gestures and her wide vocal register. Prowling between band members, leaning into the songs, audience in awe.

Her band tight and precise, as always. Dave Khan moving between guitar and keyboard. Karin Canzek (bass) offering the undercurrent alongside Earl Robertson (drums). Reb in a long black dress, mauve stage lighting, dazzling songs.

Hey Mom’s the centrepiece. Soaring yet painfully tender. Conversational almost. A comforting hug at the end from Karin, such has been the full-force of its delivery.

Silver Linings has a lilt, a song that could be straight from the canon of country music. But it’s another Reb original from the new album.

Then her band cranks up. Close your eyes and it could be Crazy Horse till Reb sings and then its echoes of Lucinda Williams’ agonised grit and maybe a hint of a Patti Smith wail.

Her set ends with Don’t You Know Who I Am – as if to say quit finding comparisons for of course we know who Reb is …prowling the stage in the brooding, compelling way we’ve come to know: a performer who embodies something equally intense, intimate and slightly other-worldly. Light years since from her apprenticeship in The Eastern’s folk repertoire.

Paul Kelly

Kelly’s now 70 and the man’s romantic edge is alive and well. Eyes sparkle singing Firewood and Candles from 2017’s Life Is Fine, second song in. Firewood and candles
Giving off a lovely light/ When she knocks upon my door/I hope she’s got an appetite.

He’s nimble too, jumping between stage levels, swivelling his hips, doing little pirouettes while playing acoustic guitar. He’s back and life is indeed fine.

We’re in the presence of a legend. Raised in a Catholic family in Adelaide, his mother an opera-singer of Italian heritage. Born in the back of taxi. Dux of a Christian Brothers school. Now a street named after him (Paul Kelly Lane in Adelaide). Dabbled with heroin and had three early bands: the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers, the latter – like Shihad becoming Pacifier – an attempt to be more acceptable to American audiences.

Third song in and its old favourite Before Too Long. His band are tight and the sound is crisp: Peter Luscombe (drums), Bill McDonald (bass), Dan Kelly (guitar), Cameron Bruce (keys), Jess Hitchcock (vocals), and Ash Naylor (guitar). Lighting splendid too. At times it’s like filigrees of white netting draped on the performers

We get snippets of backstory. Careless was built on chords from a Go-Betweens song. And Rita Wrote a Letter (composed with nephew Dan) is a sequel to How to Make Gravy.

Some of the new songs feel familiar despite what Kelly calls “still having wet paint”. Kelly gives Double Business Bound a Dylan-esque vocal growl. Harpoon to the Heart has a country twang with double bass.

Jess Hitchcock steps out of BVs to soar on Every Day My Mother’s Voice and the late Coloured Girl/Messenger Steve Connolly is credited for the guitar licks on From St Kilda to Kings Cross.

Like his fellow countryman Nick Cave, Kelly has found a mellower side in later life and his love of poetry shines through. Tonight we hear his beautiful interpretation of William Shakespeare’s (Sonnet 18) as well as adaptations of writing by Thomas Hardy (All Those Smiling Faces) and Aotearoa’s own Denis Glover (Magpies).

Last of the main set is Kelly’s collaboration with Aboriginal songwriter Kev Carmody From Little Things Big Things Grow. A song as simple as a child’s storybook but a potent message for these times.

Its past the two hour mark and they’re back for an encore. Going to the River With Dad, is a gentle elegy for simpler times, father-son companionship and a potent sense of landscape. We’re offered a buoyant rendition of Leaps and Bounds from1986 then, to close, the sublime acapella Meet Me in the Middle of the Air based on Psalm 23.

And it’s that integrity of voice and intent we walk away with. A generous set played with precision and passion by one who feels like an old friend with a great band.

Pure privilege to have each of those thirty songs wash over us.

Robin Kearns

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