Concert Review: Ladi6 – Phoenix Cabaret August 12, 2021

Ladi6 and the revived Alpha Sessions rolled into Auckland last night. With the Friday night show sold out, Thursday’s was the place to be… plenty of room for shake, shake, shakin’.

The newly-appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (for service to music) took the stage just after 10pm last night. She was ably assisted by partner Brent Park-Tamati (Parks), Julien Dyne and Brando Haru.

These Alpha Session find Ladi6 and her band performing new and unreleased songs that they work through on stage, in front of an audience. We watch (and listen to) the creative process in action. The shows are recorded and will be mixed for a new album.

So, this is not your usual ‘greatest hits, let’s please the crowd’ show, these were working musician creating in the moment.

Because most of the material was new, the songs only had working titles at best. There were a few old “classics”…Diamonds, Outta Time and the encore, Like Water.

The remaining 9 songs were fresh as.

It should come as no surprise that they were all funky…each had a solid danceable beat with plenty of percussive and electronic embellishments while Ladi6 sang.

So this show was all about the vibe…and the vibe was very good.

Ladi6 noted that it was ‘a big ask to come out on a Thursday’ but no one present seemed to care.

There was plenty of room to dance and that just what everyone did.

My only complaints are that the vocals seemed to be buried in the mix from time to time and that Ladi6 kept her winter jacket on during the entire set.

Small annoyances given the quality of the band, the performer and the lighting gear on display.

The stage looked great and the new material sounded promising!

Marty Duda

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