12/06/2025

Jessica Pratt & Tiny Ruins – Bruce Mason Centre: June 11, 2025

There’s awkward silence, and then there’s quiet. Somehow Jessica Pratt managed to keep a thousand or so people quiet for just under an hour and there was nothing awkward about it. In fact it was sublime.

Tiny Ruins

The evening got underway with Tiny Ruins…this time we got the duo version.

Hollie Fullbrook has been away from the stage for a while, tending to domestic duties. Tonight she is accompanied by bass player and backing vocalist Cass Basil…Alex Freer and Tom Healy are in the audience we are told…but, to be honest, I really enjoyed this iteration of the band.

Hollie was in good voice and good mood, reminiscing about the first time she performed on the Bruce Mason stage, at age 17, battling it out during a Rockquest final…her 7-piece band lost.

But there were no losers tonight as the Tiny Ruins 45-minute opening set felt more like part one of a double-heading show.

Among the nine songs preformed were a few old favourites…Wintergardens and Carriages…and a new tune titled, How I Know Its Right. There is a new album coming, Hollie promised.

And Cass got her bass to sound like a cello from time to time which only added to the mystic vibe.

I’m certainly looking forward to the new album.

Jessica Pratt

Jessica Pratt looked to be a frequent visitor to New Zealand a decade ago, playing Auckland twice in 2015, once at the Golden Dawn and then at The Tuning Fork.

And then nothing…

Now 10 years and two albums later, she back, this time with a full band.

Visually, not much has changed…a shock of white hair and even whiter skin…if you could see it…the lighting was such that Jessica’s face was in the dark for the entire set…but we could see her arms and hands as they glided along the fretboard.

She began alone with World On A String, from latest album, Here In The Pitch. Her four-piece band gently fell in behind and around her as they played a melody reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now.

Pratt’s voice is still a thing of wonder…a distinctive higher-pitched, pinched delivery that has drawn comparisons to freak-folker Joanna Newsom. But while Newsom’s voice drives me up the wall, Pratt’s is lovely in its own special way…just don’t try to understand the lyrics she’s singing.

And as far as her speaking voice goes…well, that remained a mystery til the very end. We got a “One, two, three, four” a few times and that was it.

Between song patter was non-existant…dead silence while tuning. I think some interaction would have been appreciated, but her warmth and personality did come through in her performance.

The band consisted of drummer Riley Fleck, guitarist/saxophonist Diego Herrera, bassist Nico Liebman (who also played a bit of guitar and sang some BVs) and keyboard man Matthew McDermott.

Pratt has injected a bit of bossa nova into her sound. Indeed, Get Your Head Out sounded vaguely like Burt Bacharach’s Do You Know The Way To San Jose, while Liebman’s bass lines on Better Hate and By Hook Or By Crook could be traced back to Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.

The set ended at just 45 minutes, but Jessica and the band returned for two more numbers and some actual spoken communication from Pratt, telling us that she was available to chat at the merch table since this was the last stop on her tour.

And sure enough, Jessica Pratt appeared, almost ghostlike, chatting and mingling with fans.

Not bad for a cold, winter Wednesday in Auckland.

Marty Duda

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

Jessica Pratt: