Photo Gallery and review by Jennifer de Koning
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As a concert photographer, I have been to hundreds of local and international shows in the last few years, but tonight I was looking forward to walking through Spark Arena’s doors to watch a masterclass of performance and energy from Highly Suspect.
Highly Suspect are the perfect combination of modern, grunge and psychedelic rock. The band consisting of frontman Johnny Stevens (vocals and guitar) and brothers Ryan Meyer (drums) and Rich Meyer (bass guitar) formed in 2009 starting as a cover band for Pink Floyd, Sublime and Jimi Hendrix in local Cape Cod, Massachusetts bars.
Walking into the venue, you could see ‘MCID’ written on many peoples posters and merch, standing for ‘my crew is dope’. MCID being their 2019 studio album – which the band’s fan base latched onto as being a part of their ‘crew’. This is also where we saw an introduction to Matt Kofos on synthesizer and guitar.
On the release of their 2022 Album ‘The Midnight Demon Club’; I was lucky enough to see Highly Suspect perform their first released show at Powerstation on 18 November 2023. As a long time fan, I was overjoyed to see their popularity grow from their first debut in March 2016 at Powerstation – to then selling out two back to back shows at the same venue with a third night released at the larger Trusts Arena.
But now was a celebration of their latest release; As Above, So Below. After their release of Midnight Demon Club, though successful, Highly Suspect wanted to retrace their roots and find their soulful music back. We have not yet forgotten that New Zealand got an early taste of this during their shows this time last year. Getting an early look at ‘Blue Eyed Devil’, ‘Summertime Voodoo’, ‘Mexico’ and ‘Run for your Death’. You could tell the band were excited to play these songs and release them for the world to hear – and now was their chance!
Opening the show were our very own Powder Chutes who were a last minute addition after wow-ing the band with their pure ‘barrier’ energy as concert goers at the Wolfbrook Arena show in Christchurch earlier in the week. Initially only due to play at the Wellington show, Johnny of Highly Suspect posted to his Instagram story “Powder Chutes is f sick, so we’re gonna put them on again tomorrow night. New Zealand, y’all got you a cool band and we ship it. Get to the show early and support your boys.” I have to agree – they were sick!
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Though I was only able to catch their first three songs; Powder Chutes opened the show with all the energy we needed to warm up for a long night of jumping around and rocking out. You could tell this was their moment and they weren’t afraid to show it. Bassist (Otis Murphy) was rocking no shirt and no shoes and jumping like there was zero gravity. Lead singer (Henry McConnell) followed suit, giving his best high kicks and playing to the back of the room.
Our second act for the night; Rita Mae. Daughter of local legend Jim Laing of the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience; she followed in his footsteps entering music herself. Her music is self described as being written from a self-destructive period of her life. Her indie-alt-rock pop style is best featured in her recent releases of ‘Kiss the Sky’ and ‘My Bad’. Joining her onstage were Jacob Brown (bass) and Jonathan Nott (drums). Much like Powder Chutes, I was only able to catch her first 3 songs but her set could be described in three words; catching your breath. Both literally as her songs were more calm in comparison but also melodically her vocals were clear and alluring. Unfortunately, I do feel that her set was not received as well as it could have been, being placed between two high energy performances, but I am happy to see that she was given grace and respect on stage by the audience in my section.
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Now 10 minutes past 9pm and it was time for Highly Suspect to take the stage. Walking out to ‘Star Wars – Duel of the Fates’ and an ominous dark red lighting, the band’s silhouettes began toward their positions. Myself firmly placed in front of Johnny Stevens at the centre of the stage, I knew ‘Bath Salts’ was up first. The crowd in the palm of their hands on the very first guitar strum, the instant recognition meant the entire audience had already begun singing along from the first lyric.
Seamlessly flowing through their discography with new songs ‘Mexico’, ‘Summertime Voodoo’, ‘Blue Eyed Devil’, and ‘Run for your Death (More Pills)’, as well as their many classics including ‘Serotonia’, ‘16’, ‘Claudeland’ and ‘Wolf’ to name a few.
During the fan favourite song ‘Lydia’, Johnny called out saying “Where’s Henry from Powder Chutes? Someone send that man up here!”. Henry, crawling from the front of the pit, was lifted over the barrier, clearly unscripted and unprepared to assist with singing. With strained vocal cords from his performance – he pre-apologised to the crowd saying “I’m really tired, my voice is really strained but I’m going to do the best I can!” As the song kicked off – you could tell the crowd didn’t mind as they did not slow down one bit. Like a wave of rock and roll hand symbols, everyone jumped alongside Henry. Johnny, giving his guitar now to Clarke West (Guitarist of Powder Chutes) and hyping up the crowd.
Before ending the final chorus, Johnny took over the mic to ask the crowd to give it up for Powder Chutes and said “these are the coolest lads in New Zealand…this is the start of a very long friendship”.
Following their crowd-pleasing song ‘Lost’ sung by Rich Meyers as lead vocals and during ‘My Name is Human’, Johnny asked the venue to turn off all the lights. Placed into darkness, as if the crowd were mind-readers, people began bringing their phones out to illuminate the venue without help of stage lighting. As the guitar rang out to the crowd, Johnny screams “make some noise if you’re alive tonight!”, to which the crowd all cheered and screamed bringing the band back into song.
As things drew to a close; we were treated to a 4-song encore of “Champagne at Our Funeral”, “Little One”, “Suicide Machine” and finally “Pink Lullabye” ending with Powder Chutes joining them onstage one final time to close the show.
Overall, as a fan of the band for many years, this show was above my expectations even considering the large success of their shows last year. Highly Suspect shows that they are not slowing down any time soon and we hope to see them eventually end up moving to New Zealand and continuing that new long friendship with Powder Chutes.
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