AJR
27th August 2022
Spark Arena, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Courtney Tabener. Photography by Doug Peters.
All I can say is WOW. What a night it was. I thoroughly enjoyed myself last night.
Starting off the night was Alexander 23 performing for the first time in New Zealand while touring his new album Aftershock. He played a few of his originals – Somebody’s Nobody, Crash, Dirty AF1s (in which the whole crowd was singing with him). Just his voice and a guitar, Amazing.
He finished off his set with IDK You Yet, another beautiful song that had the crowd singing along word for word. He made this song special by mentioning that this was a song he wrote at the start of the pandemic and in doing so it helped him through it all by helping him reach out to new people while making good friends along the way.
AJR (so named for the band consisting of Adam, Jack, and Ryan). What a great performance last night was. Jack was so full of energy, bouncing all around the stage and everyone down on the floor was jumping and dancing with him – the bright coloured and funky lighting helping set the mood completely. Their latest album OK Orchestra is so full of colour and mood lifting songs that the it was all a perfect match and 3 O’Clock Things, OK Overture and Bang! were all a major hit with the crowd.
Another highlight of the night included the way Jack interacted with the crowd – he spotted an audience member wearing an AJR mask who was acting out the lyrics. Another moment was Ryan mentioning he was having trouble finding a new hat when Jack spotted someone in the front row wearing a cow patterned hat with horns… Ryan proceeded to wear that hat for a couple of songs.
As a special treat – just as we thought we were done with the show, AJR come back on stage dressed as light up stick men and performed three more songs, 100 Days performing as the stickmen themselves.
Overall, what a great performance it was! If you get a chance to see AJR and Alexander 23 perform live, I highly recommend it – you’re never too young to get up and dance around!
Were you there at Spark Arena for this high energy gig? Or have you seen AJR perform live somewhere else? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Set List:
- OK Overture [pre-recorded intro]
- Bummerland
- Karma
- 3 O’Clock Things
- Bang!
- Dear Winter / The Trick
- Don’t Throw Out My Legos
- Ordinaryish People
- Way Less Sad
- Next Up Forever / Netflix Trip / Birthday Party / Record Player / The Green and the Town / I’m Ready / Break My Face / Christmas in June / Turning Out [trumpet medley]
- Joe
- I Won’t
- World’s Smallest Violin
- Humpty Dumpty
- Weak
- The Good Part
- Burn the House
- OK Overture [interlude]
- Sober Up [encore]
- 100 Bad Days [encore]
- OK Overture [pre-recorded ending]
Note: Ambient Light was provided passes to review and photograph this concert. As always, this has not influenced the review in any way and the opinions expressed are those of Ambient Light’s only..
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