The Wheel Of Experience, Clive NZ, 2022

The Wheel Of Experience

2nd February 2021
Clive Hall, Clive, New Zealand.

Review by Rob Harbers, photography by Andrew Caldwell.

Whether or not Roxanne had to put on the red light, in 2022 New Zealand has been forced to in response to the threat of Omicron. This is not enough, however, to get in the way of the Small Hall Sessions, which, with a tweak here and a pivot there, have managed to adapt to straitened circumstances, for the good of the souls of all who manage to attend!

First to test the waters under Omicron’s heavy manners are The Wheel Of Experience, with their bringing to life of some lesser-known characters and events from New Zealand’s past, while injecting a touch of humour (where appropriate), for what is truly a unique experience. Playing a vast array of stringed instruments, their songs illuminate history in a new way, keeping the audience hanging on every word. Folk music, in the most literal sense – acoustic instruments accompanying tales of many characters, delivered in a powerful theatrical voice. A performance straddling theatre, history lesson, and sheer enjoyment on the part of players and patrons alike.

Among the protagonists of these ballads were the hapless settlers of Cornwallis, arriving after a journey that took a record ten months to complete, since setting out from the mother country. A fellow hero of Tamaki Makaurau ‘s western frontier, Francesco Rodriguez Figuera (aka Don Buck), was the focus of another, which veered almost into the Fado territory of his native Portugal, with the same healthy injection of saudade that pervaded the overall performance.

One of the particular highlights, as hard as it may be for any to stand out in such distinguished company, was “Shadow Of the Golden Mountain”, which related the mournful plight of Joe Kum Yung. He was perhaps among the first to fall victim to the unfortunate concept of extremists self-importing and carrying out violent hate crimes – regrettably not a feature only of past times, but one that survives through to the present.

The themes of these numbers encompassed deception, gambling, white supremacy, (unwitting) same-sex marriage, castaways, slavery, murder, and many more of the delightful characteristics of pioneering times. All were rendered with the same consummate skill, the musical styles bending and flexing to incorporate different elements appropriate to the particular subject matter-resulting in sound palettes ranging from bluegrass-tinged banjo over to the mournful tones of the Oriental zhong ruan, and many points in between.

All my attempts at description, though, can only ever be but a pale shadow of this material – far better to discover it for yourself! There is still opportunity to do so with a further quartet of appearances due to occur between now and Sunday 6th February, tickets and times at smallhallsessions.co.nz. Do it!

Were you there at the Clive Hall for this intimate gig? Or have you seen The Wheel Of Experience perform live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!

Note: The Small Hall Sessions provided passes to Ambient Light 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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