Soft Bait, Awning & GroopChat – Whammy Bar: July 27, 2024 (13th Floor Concert Review)

Soft Bait are currently smattering Instagram with image-promos for Rock Bait, including a chocolate ika (fish) (which may be facing commercial extinction) hinting towards a forthcoming sophomore effort album (hopefully on vinyl this time)  But tonight the celebration is all about their new single No Bad Days their first release since their (digital only) 2022 debut Plot Points. Along for the ride were Awning and GroopChat to complete the night’s trifecta.

GroopChat

GroopChat are my unknown quantity tonight, another product of the Ngā Puna o Waiōrea/Western Springs College factory, the three-piece are a recent participant in the Tamaki Makaurau scene, having only formed in 2023, but have already made a mark on 95bFM.

During the pre-show korero throws ups, grunge and L7 are referenced about the band, and certainly, the first couple of songs give them credence. But then elements of an earlier age creep in, as Huia’s rhythmic bass playing, almost dub-style, undertow the punky guitar riffs coming from Aiyana, and both are driven by Teina’s solid drumming, it lend a hat tip to foundation bands like X-Ray Spex and The Slits. 

Onstage, Aiyana real-world chatter is fresh, enticing the audience closer and korero about op shop clothing and referencing her mum, which exposes their youth (in fact I hear their parents are onsite as they are under supervision) The song Scissors (or something similar) is a banger, at times when they get quiet, the impact lessens, revealing the band is a work in progress. Their last song (of a punchy minimalist set) shows a real shift from the grunge/L7 comparisons leaning towards minimalistic melodic post-punk. It’s a pity GroopChat didn’t open for L7 last year at the Powerstation…

Awning

Awning was a highlight of the recent Junk Festival, and the night’s korero that this is only their second show for the band based around Christian Dimick (though with a different bassist) the room is packed, packed up front with hipsters hugging hipsters, and onstage the band are tuning, tuning, tuning. Then finally, the Awning sound, sultry and sexy, alt-post punk shoegaze fills the room and the gaze is on the hip-priests.

In a set very reminiscent of the one at Junk Festival, but performed in a bigger and better-equipped room, Dimick’s fellow musicians light up tonight. The guitarist, the one with the kahurangi/blue guitar, is the well-dressed musician tonight, in a Strokes-style attire (great shirt) the young female gaze is upon him (Dimick’s already taken) 

My punter-point-of-view heroes tonight are the lass on acoustic guitar and the drummer man, so understated, so patient as the strings tune tune tune-up, but so fucking essential to the Awning sound. Like when I saw them last, the tune Gold Star (from the digital EP of the same name) still stands out as the killer song. The band is a growth industry methinks.

Soft Bait

This time the drummer is fiddling… No, not as much as Awning thankfully. Soft Bait start-slow and build-up as in sync, both band and audience burst forth in fermented post-punk energy. Another fun-fact from the night’s korero references vocalist Joshua Hunter legendary pre-show nervousness, however from the front he seems well in control, stoically pointed (or perhaps he’s just focussed on remembering his poignant lyrics)

Can I (re)mention the Black Flag guitar-sounding song (that I still don’t know the name of) from my last review of these guys? Damn dangerous, as now and then, they let the drummer get wicked, particularly on a newish tune called Neighborhood. 

Five beers in and it’s time to mention The Cars, Early Cars, Candy-O Cars, there is the same vibe, rhythm, danceable rhythm, but not over-produced (yet) sound as Soft Bait plow through their set. I’m not sure why guitarist Patrick Hickley is in his fishing tackle waistcoat, oh wait, I get it now, chocolate fish and all that! 

A personal favourite number is another post-2022 Plot Points album song Safe as Houses, I hope it’s a statement on inequitable generational transfer of wealth?, but even if it’s not, it has that aforementioned danceable rhythm, as does the Applause (the bands thank you song).

The raison d’être is saved for last, No Bad Days comes out last, well not quite as the crowd demands an encore, which is duly delivered.

Based on tonight’s full-house, full-energy, and full-aroha that permeate the air, when Soft Bait finally drop their sophomore effort, there is sure to be another reason to brave the mean streets of inner city Tamaki Makaurau. 

I have but one regret… I didn’t buy a Soft Bait Chocolate fish from the merch table… I blame it on the sixth beer…

Simon Coffey

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