Black Comet
15th June 2023
Paisley Stage, Napier, New Zealand
Review by Rob Harbers, with photography by Jacqueline Braid.
In the pantheon of Aotearoa music, one of the brightest stars is that of Laughton Kora. With a long history across an amazingly diverse spectrum of projects, when he announces a new venture, those in the know sit up and take notice! Such is the case with his latest band, Black Comet, who are setting out on a nationwide tour, which commenced in Napier’s coolest little venue™, Paisley Stage.
Warming up were the enigmatic Blklist, with a powerful and hard-hitting set of genre-bending material, giving life to their statement of intention – “Not wanting to fit into one sound, we want to make music that makes your head nod, heart pump, and lungs hurt!” Their stage uniform of red jumpsuits and a variety of masks added a strong visual element to their performance, while enhancing the overall mystery. As printed on the lead singer’s hoodie, “Who the fuck is Blklist?”. Who the fuck are they indeed? Or most likely the question on a few lips now, based on this outing, will be “where the fuck can I find this music?”. A great and lively commencement to proceedings, indeed (even if they gave poor Lucy some anxiety over the pounding being given to the precious Paisley drum kit!).
Strolling casually on to the stage, Black Comet quickly got down to business, that business being warming hearts and blowing minds! Launching straight in to a medley of Lenny Kravitz tunes, with all of the guitar shredding that implies, we were immediately put on notice that this was going to be something special indeed. And so it proved to be, with a band clearly deeply in tune with each other giving it everything they had. But perhaps the most amazing aspect of it all was that it was all done without prior practice, Laughton having declared that he just wanted to be open to where things may go, and all the band knows the songs anyway! And this is just the first show of the tour – as it goes on, surely the level of cohesion will only increase, meaning that every audience will be in for a treat.
With the tour carrying the title of “The This is The Way Tour”, the Force is powerful in these ones. Either that or there’s some kind of Jedi mind tricks at play! Whatever the case, it’s amazing stuff, and definitely worthy of catching.
Look, I could go on a lot longer here, but it’d just be gilding the lily, and would in any case amount to an extended repetition of “This is fucking brilliant stuff, you’re seriously missing something if you don’t take the opportunity to check it out” – but that’d quickly bore both me the writer and you the reader! And that’s the exact opposite of what you’d get from going to one of these shows – so I know you’d far rather have the fun – just go, get yourself a nice dose of warmth and soul, and then thank me later.
So do it!
Black Comet:
Blklist:
Were you there at Paisley Stage for this high energy gig? Or have you seen Black Comet perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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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