Concert Review: Andrew Brough Tribute – The Wine Cellar, May 7, 2021

On what would have been his 58th birthday, friends, family and bandmate gathered together at Auckland’s Wine Cellar to celebrate the music of Andrew Brough.

In addition to being a member of Straitjacket Fits, Andrew was also a member of The Orange, Blue Meanies and later, Bike. Sadly Andrew died last year, age 56.

So this year former members of Bike, The Orange along with Charlotte Yates, Jan Hellriegel and Justin McLean (The Roulettes) set up their gear and blasted out a few old favourites written by Andrew including Down In Splendour, Sparkle That Shines and a good portion of the lone Bike album, Take In The Sun.

The evening began with a brief set from The Roulettes, then, soon after, Justin returned with a new batch of musicians including Peter Bragan, the original drummer for The Orange, who travelled up from Dunedin to be here.

And so the set began with Fly, a tune from The Orange’s 1985 EP. We were told that Peter had been “in hibernation” and they had but one rehearsal, but to these ears, all was sounding as it should.

The first set was focused on pre-Bike songs such as Hand In Mine, In Spite of It All and Sparkle That Shines. Jan Hellreigel fronted for that beauty and then told a wonderful story about touring with Andrew and Straitjacket Fits and her band Cassandra’s Ears. She then raised her voice to Down In Splendour.

Don Brough, Darren Steadman and others joined in from time to time.

The second set began with Take In The Sun, featuring Bike bassist Tristan Mason, John McDermott (drums) along with Justin, Don Brough, Darren Steadman and eventually Charlotte Yates and Jan Hellreigel returned Anybody Know.

The band worked up a good head of steam during Old And Blue, with plenty of soaring guitars. Charlotte helped out with Save My Life and the evening’s final tune, Andy Dandy...one of Andrew’s final composition that appeared on Charlotte’s Baxter compilation.

With Bike have only performed aa handful of times in their brief time together it was a pleasure to hear Andrew’s songs brought to life on stage once more.

Marty Duda

Click any icon to view a full-size gallery of photos