The Others Way Festival
31st August 2019
Valhalla / SanFran, Wellington, New Zealand.
Review by Hilaire Carmody. Photography by Alexander Hallag.
In its 5th year running The Others Way Festival is a multi-venue binge of alternative and indie music, with 50 bands across multiple venues on K-Road. All organised by slightly off the beaten track record store Flying Out. This year they experimented with taking the festival away from their home-turf and Wellington hosted the inaugural sideshow. A more digestible version of seven acts across two venues.
To navigate the Auckland festival, it’s a pick-a path journey. It’s impossible to see everything. So either do your research or take a gamble and see how the night unfolds. Wellington was more like a treasure trail. The evening was laid out with evenly staggered set times and a 5-minute stroll between venues (or a heart pounding 2-minute gallop dodging drunk inner-city dwellers if you are of the FOMO-persuasion). The crowd tended to stay until the end of one band, before surging onto the streets and heading back to the previous venue to catch the next act. Sitting and watching the movement of people across the two rooms, it felt like being in a private rock pool as the crowd ebbed and waned across the night. I also liked the walk between venues. Like an intermezzo it gave me a chance to digest the previous sounds, before diving into a new experience.
I began the evening at San Fran with STINK. The night had barely begun, and the crowd was mostly sober and rather sparse. Fresh faced, fun and full of exuberance, they laid out their jazz influenced indie pop with smiles, bounce and banter. Their enthusiasm is going to take them far.
Then it was right out the door and over to catch a slice of GirlBoss. Coming from the larger venue into the smaller rom of Valhalla, it was a sudden plunge into the warmth of a fuller locale. I was instantly wrapped in the thrall of Lucy Botting’s smoky post-dessert vibes. Her heartfelt lyrics flowing over low-chill guitars were entrancing.
Back at San Fran Chris Cohen upped the warmth factor with his amber vocals and rosy sounding backing band. The five of them delivered a fulsome set. Giving Chris the opportunity to break out and solo his meticulous guitar skills. They really bought the chill-LA vibes. It felt like watching your big brothers band have a low-key jam session in the garage. Low pretention, high resonance.
Chris is well worth following on Spotify as he is the subtle ear-worm king.
I manged to get about 15 minutes of Purple Pilgrims into my night. Unfortunately, their session was marred by technical issues. Their backing music was inappropriately loud, pushing the audience away and making an obvious void in front of the stage. I was unable to discern what was live and pre-recorded, and where the reverb from guitar came in, was it even plugged in? Fortunately, the live version of ‘Drink the Juice’ managed to avoid these issues it was lush, orphic and layered. However, the following songs were marred by extreme feedback. I left the room as the sound tech was getting a well-deserved dose of stink-eye from the stage.
Off the back of their US tour, The Chills owned the San Fran stage and were well in their element. Martin delivering on point banter to the heckly crowd. Despite having a new bass player, whose appearance was only the 4th so far with them, they worked as a tight unit. With 45 minutes and 13 songs, the set was a good mix of tracks from across their whole back catalogue. A wisely dropped Pink Frost mid-way through keep the crowd raring. For those that stuck it through right to the end, we were treated to ‘The Walls Beyond Abandon’ a new song from a ‘newer’ album….a hint that there could be a new release in progress. A sweaty dancefloor lapped up ‘Heavenly Pop Hit’ and ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ before they sadly had to pack their instruments away.
Headlining the evening were local favourites Mermaidens. A late stand-in for John Maus, who had to head back to the US for personal reasons. This was an obvious and perfect replacement choice to end the evening. Cocooned in swishy lo-fi with layered vocals, the dance floor undulated to a driving rhythm. We too were treated to a sneak peak of a new song, ‘Bastards’, from their album ‘Look Me In The Eye’ being released this coming Friday 6th September. What a way to wrap up the night.
Overall, I enjoyed the mini-festival vibes. The crowd were fellow music nerds. At one point strolling between venues I was behind some younger guys arguing about playing ‘Money for Nothing’ as an acoustic set, and if the epic drum or amazing guitar solo were key to opening that song, classic! However, I felt that the attendance was a bit thin. I’m not sure if this was due to balancing the size of a 200-capacity room with a 500-capacity room, or if the concept didn’t fire with the Capital’s gig scene. I also have to put in the usual lament in about the state of Wellington’s live music venues. With limited options, there is a limited way to run something like this. If Zeal was still open, we could have an all-ages stage like Auckland did. Which I personally would be super-excited about. More spaces would lead to a more exciting side-show. For now, I had to sate myself on morsel sized bites of performance, hopefully next year it will be back with more.
Were you there in Wellington for this magnificent celebration of Music? Or have you seen any of the artists somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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