Dead Favours – Galatos June 16, 2023 (Concert Review)

Dead Favours brought the good times back to Galatos last night with help from their buddies, Ekko Park.

Galatos seems to be one of those venues that everyone has a specific memory about…most of them very good.

So, it was cool to see some new memories being made at the historic building which, according to the NZ Herald, ‘was built in the early 1900s and was originally the lodge for the United Ancient Order of Druids’. 

How cool is that.

We arrive to catch most of the Ekko Park set (sorry to miss Animalhead) and the place is jumping with old fans and new.

Ekko Park

Ekko Park is Joe Walsh (vocals), Jessie Booth (guitar), Bryan Bell (bass) and Nick Douch (drums) and they have shared the bill with Dead Favours many times over the years. The band is sounding very, very good (they’ve been nominated for Best Rock Album, a Taite and Best Rock Artist over the last decade, but never won…maybe their time is now.  Special mention goes to Jessie Booth’s guitar playing…fabulous!

Dead Favours

We had a couple of members of Dead Favours up at The 13^th Floor a few weeks ago as part of our Singles Session Series and, sure enough we got an electrified and amplified version of Sink Or Swim tonight, along with a healthy dose of other tracks from their latest EP, Riffing & Yelling (Part 2) and with a few from Part 1 and some tasty older nuggets. The band’s sound is loud and riff-driven, powered by guitarist Kyle Wetton. For those keeping score, the rest of the band is vocalist Jared Wrennall, drummer Charlie Smith and new guy, bassist Alex Ferrier.

Jared pointed out that producer (and Six60 member) Chris Mac was in the house, so a shout out to him.

Along with Sink Or Swim, I was particularly taken by One Last Drink, as it turns out, an appropriate song for an evening of high-powered rock & roll and good times.

Marty Duda

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