November 6, 2022

No Cigar – Galatos: November 5, 2022 (Concert Review)

No Cigar brought their Bienvenido album tour to a sold-out night at Galatos. A wild crowd stood shoulder to shoulder and sang along to nearly every word.

Cassie Henderson

I feel sorry for Cassie Henderson’s acoustic guitar. She plays with such intense energy that I am surprised there are still 6 strings on there. Half of the time the singer-songwriter would play over a track with some hefty sub-kick shaking everybody in the room. However, her voice is the real star of her set. Cassie has a lovely raspy voice, soaring over that poor little guitar. Her music is everyday pop and I am surprised I haven’t seen her face and name all over billboards and commercial radio stations yet. ZM, the Edge, step up your scouting game, sign this artist up!

Sojourn

Mangawhai-based 6-piece surf psych reggae band Sojøurn are next to strut onto the Galatos stage and tell the now quickly filling room that they’re “Ready for 45 minutes of fun with you”. I retreated towards the back of the venue as the generously sized room quickly gets uncomfortably crowded and especially hot during the band’s fun set. The guys in the band are relaxed and have a fantastic balance between short banter, thanking the headliner and support act, and getting back to the music. Frontman, Isaac Hunter, puts down his guitar and loses a few layers of clothing halfway through the set and saxophonist Jacob O’Brien manages to loose even more towards the end of the set. It’s definitely hot in this room. Sojøurn is a fantastic live band where everyone gets a solo!

No Cigar

Ned Gow counts four beats in and all of No Cigar drop into a filthy riff. I have to give credit to the sound technicians, Galatos can be a difficult room (sonically) because of it’s size but every act has sounded great from the first beat till the last. Willy Ferrier’s cool and calm vocals nicely ride the riff-heavy garage rock that has half the crowd singing along to most choruses. The songs are cleverly written with big gaps of space between lyrics leaving time for the audience to get ready for to chant along to the next one. No Cigar has noticeably little banter, and are mostly here to play their music, which they do very well. The crowd was wild and some people climb onto their friends’ shoulders to see over the rowdy room full of music lovers. Anyone who’s not on someone else’s should is awkwardly pressed together as the venue was clearly at capacity, if not over. A saxophonist joins the 5-piece band halfway through the set and the crowd goes crazy for it; it’s like they didn’t notice there had already been a saxophonist on stage in the previous band’s set. All together, it was a hugely successful night for the last stop in Aotearoa of No Cigar’s Bienvenido album tour, before they head over for three shows in Australia. If you didn’t catch them live in New Zealand and won’t catch them in Australia, I highly recommend you spin their album a few times; it’s excellent. Keep an eye out for these guys as they are sure to appear on festival line-ups throughout the country.