A Love Letter to Auckland’s Gig Scene By Lyric Waiwiri-Smith My exposure to Auckland’s local music scene was in 2015, when my friend and I huddled together at the back of class to watch a video of Miss June performing Drool. We observed with impressionable eyes the way Annabel Liddel effortlessly swayed her hips and sneered and sang “you think you’re so fucking cool!” It was the coolest thing we had ever seen in our lives, and my friend couldn’t believe this was my first time hearing about Miss June, and that I had no idea they belonged to an underground world of artists doing this locally. I obsessively began scouring Facebook for my first chance to get in.
This opportunity came to me in the form of Messed Up, a little festival featuring a number of Auckland’s local bands - Yukon Era, Joe Says No, The Moots, Miss June spread across two stages in a run-down hall off K Road. This was a high stakes situation - finally a chance to immerse myself in the hidden world I was obsessed with, but my friends pulled out last minute so I had to go alone, as a very uncool and unsavvy 15-year-old. Getting past the fear of the large, buzzing crowd outside, and the musicians at the door trying to crack jokes with me (I suddenly felt very small and unimportant in my baggy jeans and white shirt), I entered a world where the people danced without fear of being judged, dressed like the people you saw in movies and I watched kids who were still in high school perform to cheers. The floor was sticky with sweat and I had to duck when mosh pits formed and keep my head down when everyone around me was singing along and I wasn’t. I remember after Miss June’s set, the final one of the night, I
waited nervously as the crowd thinned and Annabel started packing up her gear. I approached her very tentatively, and as we made eye contact in low light I said “I really like your music.” She grinned, “thank you so much!” It’s hard to put into words how deeply this experience stirred me. Being teenagers, and young girls especially, music meant everything to my friends and me. Our lives felt so mundane at the best of times, but we had our collection of residential heroes that held up a brighter and more glamorous mirror of our lives. The gig scene felt like our own little universe, hidden down some steps in St Kevins Arcade or a library hall in Grey Lynn or someone’s apartment-turned-venue on K Road, accessible only for $10. When the light in the crowd is low enough, the music loud enough, the people waving their limbs around you strange enough, you have the liberty of choosing who you want to be. It was easy for us to hide under the guise
