NERVE photos by Shelley Te Haara / AITCH photos by Dalong Ye-Lee.
The crowd was quick to pack in to The Powerstation. I didn’t know what sort of crowd to expect and I have to admit, it was interesting. A range of different ethnicities but all quite young. I also got the vibe the crowd were people who don’t gig too often as it seemed tame for a rap gig. From what I saw, Wellington brought the energy more… But I’m here to report back on Auckland because that is the night I witnessed.
Australian rapper NERVE opened the show for Aitch. SMAK kicked things off by hyping the crowd up a bit with some bangers. This is where I could see the crowd would be interesting as they seemed to vibe but not as much as you’d hope. Then NERVE took the stage. I feel like Australian rappers are looked at quite differently and I don’t understand why.
Shout out to the group in the corner of the stage that seemed to just be hype and living their best lives. The rest of the crowd needed that energy. NERVE was precise and clean in his delivery. It was a great set from him and though the crowd didn’t deliver the energy back, I’d say he killed his first performance in NZ.
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When Aitch finally took the stage the crowd snapped. But it wasn’t really in a high energy way, more of a just super stoked way. Though if like me you wanted to see him on his last tour, that never happened, then it makes sense. Aitch does solid banter between tracks and though some people don’t like that as much with performers, the crowd really liked it. It didn’t take long before a bra made it’s way on to the stage. Aitch decided to encourage this, which opened floodgates. I’d say nearly each song there was a bra. Being a women it was funny to see that it was a range of basic bras (we aren’t about to give you our expensive ones you aren’t going to keep etc – some might but this crowd didn’t). The crowd sang loudly though, I will give them that. Especially to the big tracks like RAIN.
But it was a great set by Aitch and I am sure two sold out NZ shows will bring him back to Aotearoa with his new album CLOSE TO HOME.
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