Concert Review: The Streets – Town Hall, July 22, 2019

The Streets performed their first-ever solo gig at Auckland Town Hall last night, transforming the stalls into an open dance area and delivering an unforgettable, once-in-a-lifetime performance.

DJ Hudge (Dave Hudgins) opened with a chilled, bass-heavy set, which reminded me of the now-extinct Rakinos on High Street back in its glory days. Neon pink and yellow spotlights washed over the crowd as they began to fill the venue, slowly finding their groove as DJ Hudge moved between Reggae, Roots, and Grime Hip-Hop / R&B, vibrating the walls and floors of the Town Hall in preparation for the arrival of The Streets.

It was a perfect warm-up set for the eager crowd, though nothing could have prepared them for the 90-minutes of ‘00s British nostalgia that would burst out of Mike Skinner from the moment he walked on stage. Opening with a stage-light show and booming classical sample which could easily have been the first few seconds of a gig by French electronic duo, Justice, Skinner and supporting members of The Streets dove immediately into Turn The Page, Let’s Push Things Forward, Don’t Mug Yourself, and Could Well Be In – but how do I begin to describe the moments between those hits?

In the opening fifteen minutes of their set, Skinner sprayed the crowd with a bottle of champagne, lauded the quality of New Zealand marijuana and implored the crowd to export it to the rest of the world, mentioned that he’d had ‘fush and chups’ for breakfast, showed off a giant cookie from Auckland Live, provided a fan with a bottle of water and enforced that they hydrate, took a selfie on stage using a fan’s smartphone, personally addressed more than a dozen crowd members, was given a fan’s coat, British passport, and delivered the first of many metaphoric addresses about minority groups and how much he loves New Zealand. In the first fifteen minutes. I try to resist using italics as a means of emphasis, but there’s simply no other way to describe how overwhelmingly impressive this performance was.

Skinner’s stage presence, and balance between performance and crowd control, was something I’ve never witnessed in the capacity shown last night, effectively hypnotising the crowd as they hung on every word, every address, every glimpse and moment of wit and hyper-aware observational comedy. Following Geezers Need Excitement and the presentation of his giant, pizza-box-clad cookie, Skinner mentioned The Streets had performed festivals in New Zealand before, but never a proper, solo show – before the stunning piano of Never Went To Church and Stay Positive highlighted the incredible solo vocals and harmonising of Kevin Mark Trail.

The heavier Going Through Hell, complete with blood-red stage lights, touched on the grimy, grunge sound of Rage Against The Machine, before Too Much Brandy and It’s Too Late gave the crowd their first unified moment of singing support.

‘Do you know how I know your country is the best? Someone just gave me a British passport – two spliffs, half a gram of MDMA, and a British passport,’ Skinner joked with the crowd, before planting the seeds for the show’s final moments, ‘When Kevin Mark Trail gets excited, he says “one, two – one, two, three, four” remember that! Remember that! We’re going to share a moment of total abandon.’

Heaven For The Weather saw the crowd singing along with increased intensity as Skinner instructed the crowd to hold up a female crowd-surfer as she floated across the hands of almost every fan in the lower stalls. It was an unbelievably impressive method of unifying the crowd, which speak to Skinner’s ability in breaking down the wall between artist and fan. While many artists might perform an exact replica of their album, or provide a live experience of their recorded work, to watch The Streets perform live is to be gifted something irreplicable – every person in attendance last night witnessed and experienced something completely unique, and entirely their own.

The slower Your Wave God’s Wave God bled into the superb funk guitar and deep bass of Weak Become Heroes, during which Skinner disappeared backstage and into the seated balcony section, walking among fans while singing and occasionally stopping to deliver another moment of perfectly timed humour. Skinner’s final act of brilliance was in organising the crowd to separate in the middle, ambitiously hoping to run from the stage to the back of the room, and crowd-surf to the stage again.

Did Skinner manage it? Of course he did, as the screaming appreciation of mega-hit Fit But You Know It filled the room, and with every person in attendance joyously singing and jumping up and down, Skinner expertly used the previous Kevin Mark Trail address to not only continue singing while running through the crowd, but to crowd-surf from the back of the room to the stage in under 25 seconds.

For any other band, any other crowd, this would have seemed impossible – but for The Streets, it seemed as natural as the delivery of Skinner’s wit-heavy lyrics. While this may be one of the longest concert reviews I’ve ever written, it still barely covers the immensity of the experience last night; a once-in-a-lifetime experience by a group who are still arguably the epitome of ‘00s British alternative rap, and pulled out every stop in their show to ensure their fans felt exactly that.

Oxford Lamoureaux

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:

 

The Streets Setlist:

Turn the Page

Lets Push Things Forward

Don’t Mug Yourself

Could Well Be In

Has It Come to This?

Geezers Need Excitement

Never Went to Church

Stay Positive

Going Through Hell

Too Much Brandy

It’s Too Late

The Escapist

Heaven for the Weather

Dry Your Eyes

Your Wave God’s Wave God

Open The Till

Weak Become Heroes

Blinded By The Lights

Fit But You Know It