Against The Current
3rd October 2017
The Tuning Fork, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Sarah Kidd. Photography by Matt Henry Mendonca.
Last night saw New York trio Against the Current play to a small but appreciative audience of fans at one of Auckland’s best little venues The Tuning Fork. The band who finds it ‘difficult to give themselves a genre’ are currently touring in support of their debut album In Our Bones released in 2016, a year after their rather successful EP Gravity. Formed in 2011 this is yet another young group who found their way to fame and a recording contract after submitting cover songs to their YouTube channel.
In support were twin sister duo Lexxa (recently seen in this very same room back in August as part of Seamless Vol. 04) and to keep the fans amused between change overs, a Coup De Main DJ set; the latter unfortunately coming across as more of a bored teenager fooling around with their personal Spotify playlist than a semi-professional DJ; many of the song choices not taking into account the audience base and rather than transitioning smoothly into the next song, being abruptly cut off.
The crowd amused themselves chattering away amongst each other until the lights dimmed and dramatic music filled the air as the band arrived on stage to much enthusiastic applause, lead singer Chrissy Costanza receiving particularly loud whoops from a surprisingly large amount of male fans. One thing is for sure Costanza knows how to hit the ground running as she epitomised the terminology ‘Pocket Rocket’; all gorgeously long hair and energetic stage presence. While the band are a three piece they appear tonight with two additional (touring) guitarists; Roo Buxton and – judging by the requests for photos after the show – Jordan Eckes who more than a few fans recognised as the former vocalist and rhythm guitarist of fellow Poughkeepsie band We Are In The Crowd.
Two songs in and Costanza already has the audience wrapped around her little finger; probably only one of the few people in the world who could possibly make the combination of a pair of dark blue camo pants [corrected from dark grey sweat pants – thanks Chrissy!] and ankle boots look sexy, her dynamism is terribly infectious and makes it hard to actually want to look at any other member of the band. In stark contrast, yet perfectly balancing the stage is Dan Gow on lead guitar and backing vocals, barely moving from his stock still position on the right for most of the night, he is the rock to which Costanza tethers herself to as she throws her body into and around each and every track.
“First time in New Zealand! So if you know the words sing a long!” Costanza has certainly been reading from the pages of “How to make your audience love you: 101” as she continues throughout the night to lavish praise upon the audience and rave about how excited the group are to be in New Zealand. At one point early on in the show asking if any one has any recommendations of what they should ‘check out’ tomorrow before they fly out to Australia; one particularly cheeky fan calling out “My House”.
While the band may certainly have been giving it their all with their set tonight the sound mix sadly let them down; common sense telling most sound engineers that when you have a small crowd turning up the bass is never going to be a good idea as all it will do is reverberate around the vacant spaces of the room. Because of this many of the wonderful subtleties and ambience of their songs were lost and Costanza’s lower octave vocals on songs such as ‘Paralyzed’ were sadly reduced to what sounded like a washed out mumble. Despite this drummer Will Ferri certainly set out to make a night of it, losing a symbol quarter of a way through the set “ we have lost a symbol which is a good sign” Costanza joked as she kept the crowd amused with more light hearted banter while Ferri sorted his kit out. Ferri definitely matched Costanza in intensity levels and while mainly hidden from sight for audience members on the right, those on the left would have had the best seat in the house for an outstanding drum performance throughout the night.
Whether it was due to the rather terrible sound mix or just because that’s how they are; many of Against The Current’s tracks tonight sounded the same, with songs such as ‘Chasing Ghosts’ drowning in the overwhelming muddy bass. Luckily there were a few tracks that seemed to survive and shine through, such as Costanzas favourite of their new album ‘Roses’ which had some nice harmonies between herself and Gow and lead to a rather heartfelt story about how it was originally written as a break-up song but ended up being about a friend of hers who sadly lost his life; Costanza visibly troubled as she then spoke of the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas and how one of her own cousins (who luckily is ok) was shot.
After slowing it down a bit with ‘Dreaming Alone’, Costanza raised the energy levels once again by hyping the crowd and telling them that she far prefers the Kiwi accent to the Australian (Book 101 again) and asking the audience to shout “Talk, Talk, Talk” during the chorus of aptly titled track ‘Talk’
They finished their set with a stripped down version of ‘In Your Bones’ and Costanzas self-confessed favourite track to play live ‘Gravity’, Costanza once again asking the crowd to get their arms up high and jump along, which they all happily complied with. It may not have been the largest audience that Against The Current have played to on this tour – but each and every fan left with a smile as big as their love for the band.
Were you there at The Tuning Fork for this magnificent pop-rock performance? Or have you seen Against The Current perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Setlist:
- Wild Things
- Blood Like Gasoline
- Paralyzed
- Forget Me Now
- Runaway
- One More Weekend
- Chasing Ghosts
- Roses
- Outsiders
- Dreaming Alone
- Brighter
- Talk
- Wasteland
- In Our Bones – encore
- Gravity – encore
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