Troy Kingi & The Promises
14th October 2022
Powerstation, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Alexis Brook. Photography by Doug Peters.
Ten out of Ten is how I would rate last night’s album release party of ‘Year of The Ratbags and Their Musty Theme Songs’, the 6th in Troy Kingi’s 10 albums, 10 genres, 10 years series. A stunning set of 80’s inspired synth-pop filled Auckland’s Powerstation, and the crowd was loving it. With many of the patrons dressed to impress in their best denim, neon wrist bands and fluro fishnets, it was clear that the fans were ready to embrace this latest record.
Opening the evening was the highly entertaining Matt Nanai & the Magnets. This crew knew how to warm up a crowd, and with their friends and family in tow the night kicked off to a smashing start. Playing a couple of covers (such as Prince’s Kiss, and George Michael’s ‘Faith’) and some originals including ‘I Will Wait’ which was dedicated to Sarah his wife and not all the other Sarah’s in the house. Currently on the charts is new single ‘I Need Somebody’, which now more than five people have heard. This was the perfect opening artist for the evening and musically gelled so much with the rest of the night. I look forward to seeing more of Matt’s performances – his rapport and engagement with the audience really got everyone into a great party mood.
As the opening keys of ‘Elephant In the Room’ rang through the walls, the crowd gave up a huge wave of cheers. The time had come for Troy Kingi (& The Promises) to showcase what they had been up to for album six of ten. With such a familiar vibe it was easy to groove along to each and every track, but the genius comes from the social commentary woven into every track lyric. Just brilliant, memorable and thought provoking.
While most of the evening came from this most recent album, there were a few throwbacks to earlier in the series, such as Aztechknowledgey from 2017’s Shake That Skinny Ass All The Way to Zygerton, which the crowd lapped up every note of.
Six songs in, at the start of ‘Authenticity’, the audience was given a Rubix cube, and asked not to take it too far as Troy would need it later and it was during the outro that he asked for it back, and stood centre stage under spotlight for a casual bit of cube solving in the middle of your set. No pressure. With the last few squares proving a little elusive, the outro wrapped around again, and to many cheers and hollers once solved, the cube was tossed into the crowd as a gift. My album earworm is Paparazzo, and if you haven’t seen the music video, it’s definitely worth a watch for some era nostalgia and many movie and tv hat-tips
With releasing so much new music, encores are the perfect way to keep new but now old tracks fresh on minds, and his choices tonight were splendid first up was ‘Is the Honeymoon Gone?” from 2020’s Ghost of Freddie Cesar, followed by ‘Grandmas Rocket Poem’ from the 2017’s 2nd series album Shake That Skinny Ass All The Way to Zygerton before sending the crowd humming home with a fabulous cover of Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby?”
Troy Kingi. What a powerhouse of talent. I know many have applied the words genius to this endeavour, and it is entirely accurate. He’s a taonga of music in NZ and I look forward to seeing what is ahead for album #7.
Were you there at Powerstation for this fun 80’s themed gig? Or have you seen Troy Kingi perform live some other time? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Setlist:
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. This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase a product using an affiliate link, Ambient Light will automatically receive a small commission at no cost to you.
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