The Veils – Hollywood Avondale: March 21, 2025
Tonight’s Veils sold-out show at the Hollywood Cinema has the feel of a triumphant homecoming gig. The venue is filled to bursting, and despite the fact that Finn Andrews and co are no strangers to the local live circuit, there’s palpable excitement in the air.
Finn quips, early in the show, that Auckland shows fill him with a sense of “existential dread” – and that even if he makes ten more albums, then that’s “only ten more Auckland shows”, and “that’s not that many”. (The solution, Finn, is just to play more shows.)
The story of the Veils, and Finn Andrews is probably fairly well known. Auckland teenage prodigy writes a bunch of songs and goes to England. Gets signed by Rough Trade, who want him as “a band”, so they team him up with a bunch of jobbing musicians and, voila, The Veils! There’s a bunch of singles, some recorded with ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, and eventually an album cobbled together from various sessions. But Finn never really warms to the other band members, breaks up the not-really-a-band and comes back to New Zealand to nurse his wounds, forming a new version of The Veils featuring a bunch of his friends and returns to the UK.
Over the last couple of decades The Veils have been making albums and touring relentlessly, and whilst never getting to the level of popularity of some of the other early 00s guitar bands like The Libertines, their career is respectable enough to be able to work like “name” producers like Nick Launay and El-P and, perhaps even more impressively, to get cult film director interested enough to have them guest in an episode of Twin Peaks. Finn Andrews relocated back to New Zealand in the early 2020s, and – along with having a child and releasing a solo album – also put out the excellent … And Out of the Void Came Love in 2023, perhaps the best distillation of the bands’ sound to date.
2025’s new “Veils” album Asphodels follows the same sonic template as Andrews’ 2019 solo album One Piece at a Time, and appears to be a Veils album in name only, having been largely recorded by Finn with the aid of a string section, and featuring none of the musicians featured on previous band albums. (And I note that the Wikipedia entry for the band currently lists only one member of the band). With this in mind, arriving at the Hollywood Cinema tonight I have literally no idea who is going to be joining Finn Andrews as “the Veils” on stage this evening.
Whereas previous gigs I’ve seen The Veils play – especially the one supporting the El-P-produced Total Depravity – have been absolutely ferocious, I’m wondering if tonight is going to a subdued affair, or possibly even a Finn Andrews-solo show? But, nope, there’s a band. And while the first half hour of the setlist relies heavily on Asphodels songs, with Finn sitting at the keyboards, the other four band members (swapping between drums, keyboards, guitar, pedal steel and violin) flesh out the sound, so even the “quiet” songs sound hefty and a little menacing.
After four songs tinkling the ivories, Andrews finally picks up a guitar, launching into Swimming with the Crocodiles and a clutch of songs from the back catalogue (but showing little regard for the Veils first – and in my opinion best – album The Runaway Found) The rock songs are fleshed out and extended live, and the set plays out like a three act play, building to a climax and then gently offering a false resolution with a few more Asphodels songs before climaxing with Sun Gangs’ Sit Down by the Fire and, finally, a ferocious Jesus for the Jugular replete with red throbbing lights that almost make you feel like you’ve landed in one of the seven circles of hell.
After probably the shortest ever gap between set an encore (Finn’s apparently moving house, he probably needs to get up early in the morning), we’re treated to a plaintive, piano-led version of The Tide That Left and Never Came Back, followed by an absolutely blistering Nux Vomica.
Once again The Veils delivered a spellbinding performance, balancing raw intensity with haunting beauty, and reaffirmed their status as one of the most compelling acts of the local scene. As the final notes of Axolotl faded, the audience was left in awe—proof that, even after all these years, Finn Andrews still possesses an undeniable, almost mystical, pull.
Lawrence Mikkelsen
Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Warne:
The Veils:
Erny Belle:
