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Russell Brown

"It's not so long since it seemed that New Zealand's live music scene was dead; dance music and the DJs had taken over. Things could hardly be more different now."

Where once they were closing down, new live music bars have opened in the past three or four years and have not been hampered (indeed, have probably been helped) by new laws banning smoking in pubs.

A young indie rock 'n' roll scene has developed around the quintessentially grotty Eden's Bar in Auckland's Karangahape Road. A hundred metres away on the same strip, the old Rising Sun tavern is now home to Four Twenty, the town's most popular hip-hop venue.

But it’s the dub-funk-roots axis that really pulls the punters. The likes of Fat Freddy's Drop and Salmonella Dub can count on big crowds wherever they play - both their recent shows in Auckland were at the 2000-plus capacity St James Theatre, and the Dub played two nights.

But this is summer festival music: Fat Freddy's Drop, Salmonella Dub, Shapeshifter, Kora, the Black Seeds and Pitch Black lead the lineup at Rhythm & Vines, the annual New Year event at Gisborne's Waiohika Estate. The organisers had to nearly double the size of the festival after their initial run of 6000 tickets sold out within a week of release. (Tickets are now fetching a premium on Trade Me if you just can't bear to miss it.)

Just over a month later, on February 4, Rippon 06 goes down at the stunning Rippon Vineyard in Wanaka (there's also an after-party in Wanaka itself). That lineup includes Fat Freddy's (again), Shihad, the Phoenix Foundation, Pluto, the Mint Chicks, Shapeshifter and Fly My Pretties. Tickets are still available from the festival website.

There has also been a move to unconventional venues: the Wellington supergroup Fly My Pretties assembled for three nights at Wellington's Bats Theatre (the live album taken from those shows is on the verge of going platinum) and did the same thing recently in Auckland at the Hopetoun Alpha, a beautiful former church. The Phoenix Foundation and SJD are embarking on a nationwide tour of theatres.

The live revival has had a direct impact on the fortunes of the local indie labels that release 90% of local repertoire. The Fat Freddy's album, Based on a True Story, received relatively little promotion and was handled by an independent distributor: it shot to number one in the local album chart and is now closing on triple platinum status. New Zealand music's share of the overall retail music market has more than doubled since 1998, and the voluntary music targets scheme agreed by the government with commercial broadcasters has seen the proportion of local music in the schedules climb to an average 20% (up from 2% 10 years ago).

Summer will also see the usual round of beach and holiday spot tours through January, and most local city councils stage free concerts through the summer months too. Wellingtonians go all misty-eyed at the mention of last year's open-air show featuring the Phoenix Foundation. So yes, this little part of the culture is quite healthy right now…

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Experience more of Russell's blogs and commentaries at http://www.publicaddress.net

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