Gig Review: Alien Weaponry w/ Seas Of Conflict @ The Powerstation
It was a quiet, sunny December evening as I pulled up to the footpath outside The Powerstation, one of Auckland’s most iconic venues. With a history running over 30 years deep, The Powerstation has hosted some of the biggest names in music, including Ramones, Soundgarden, Beastie Boys, and Radiohead. Though it wasn’t Alien Weaponry’s first time playing The Powerstation, the first time being supporting Shihad in 2015, tonight they would headline The Powerstation for the first time. Everyone, including the band, was ecstatic.
The evening had been made extra special for me thanks to Alien Weaponry’s guitar tech, and my good mate, Matt Holden, who had offered to hook me up with a backstage and dressing room pass. I entered The Powerstation, and, due to this being an All Ages show, with the upstairs bar closed, it was awesome to see so many youngsters and teens there. For some of them, it could have been their very first concert, so there was great energy and excitement brewing amongst the young crowd. I looked over the balcony, and saw the stage, dimly lit by blue light, with the Alien Weaponry logo behind it. It was indeed shaping up to be a brilliant night, one that I had been looking forward to for months. It would no doubt be a huge milestone in the band’s career and I felt privileged to be part of it.
I met Matt inside on the balcony, and he bestowed me with my backstage pass. He then led me outside and around the back of the venue. On the way, we bumped into a friendly face: Alien Weaponry guitarist and singer, Lewis De Jong. I met Lewis and his brother, Henry, who plays the drums for Alien Weaponry, in January 2020, at Sound Splash music festival in Raglan. We have been good friends since, and this was the first time I had seen them perform live in a very long time. We entered the dressing room and met up with Henry. The dressing room was far different from the party of booze, drugs, and girls that one might expect from the dressing room of a metal band. The band were all in the dressing room chilling with friends, family, and crew.
Seas Of Conflict
After about half an hour of witnessing the boys’ highly entertaining, nipple-flashing dressing room shenanigans, the room suddenly began to shake and tremble with immense force and thunderous sound. What could this be? An earthquake? I then realized that this meant that the support band: Hamilton residents, Seas Of Conflict, had hit the stage. I had seen Seas Of Conflict before and love their music. I headed side-stage to watch their set and was soon joined by Henry, who came to check them out too. It’s always a good thing when the headline band is supportive of the openers. Seas Of Conflict played a fine selection of songs, from brand new tracks like Consume and Back Breaker to old fan favourites like Eventide and Prometheus. Given that it had been a dream of the bands to play at The Powerstation, they were not about to let up the energy. Singer, Kody Naidoo, was so into it that he even chipped his tooth on the microphone, however, aside from making a small comment about it, it was not about to stop him from delivering a great performance, along with absolutely crushing vocals. By the time the band left the stage, the audience was a sweaty mess, and, given the main job of a support band is to warm up the crowd, they could relax in a job very well done indeed.
As Seas Of Conflict announced their final song, Matt came and told me that I had to return to the dressing room. This was because the area that I was in needed to be cleared for the transition between the two bands.
Alien Weaponry
I returned to the dressing room, where the band were preparing to take the stage. Lewis took off his shirt (it has now been 3 years since he has performed without a bare chest) as Matt bestowed him with his magnificent, jet-black, 7 string guitar, and turned on the in-ear pack attached to the guitar strap. Henry slipped on his drumming gloves. These prevent blisters and calluses whilst playing, but, it seems that one shirtless member per band was enough, as he kept his shirt on! Henry, Lewis and Matt were joined by bass player, Turanga Morgan-Edmonds, as the four of them disappeared out the door to the stage. Mere moments later, the audience was brought to silence by the sound of their intro, a karakia, and the sight of a spotlight on Henry, standing behind the drum kit.
Here we go. Finally, the show was starting. Henry began performing a haka and was joined on stage by Lewis and Turanga, joining the band together as one strong unit. As the band launched into their first song ‘PC Bro’, a song about living in an overly politically correct society, and mindless watching of other people’s lives on celebrity talk shows, Matt opened the dressing room door and said I could go watch the band again. As everyone else in the room headed for the sweaty, R18 chaos of the mosh pit, I followed Matt. After seeing that the wall to our left was just fabric, I realised that we were walking directly behind the stage. Once I started watching the show, it was apparent that it was going to be a special night.
Alien Weaponry was less than a minute into their set, and already the place had erupted like an atomic bomb, with people flying everywhere. It was a war zone. After their first song, Lewis addressed the crowd, thanking them for coming, and saying how awesome it was to be touring again, after not being able to perform for nearly eight months. The second song was ‘Holding My Breath’, a song written by Lewis about his struggles with social anxiety. The intensity of this song emulates the feeling of anxiety or a panic attack, along with the line in the chorus, “Locked in a room, void of normality, I’m in a black hole suffering endlessly”. The band’s intensity is returned by the crowd, with the mosh pit growing more vigorous. It reaches its highest point in the outro, with frantic lights, and the repeated lyric, ‘opening my eyes is worse than death, why I keep on holding my breath.’ After this song, Lewis announced that the band had been working on a new album, which is due for release in 2021, and the next song was on the new album. This led them into ‘Tangaroa’, a new, bone shakingly heavy song about the importance of protecting the world’s oceans and planet earth. The lyrics to the song are a perfect blend of English and Maori. My personal favourite part of this song was the relentless, half-time breakdown right in the middle, featuring the repeated line, “Ngawai! Roro! Katoa!”, that was awesome to sing (or rather yell) along with.
Another one of my favourite moments of their set was the track Ahi Ka. This song will appear on the band’s upcoming album, and is about an incident of New Zealand’s history, in 1952, where a Maori village in Auckland’s Okahu Bay was evacuated and burned to the ground, making the inhabitants homeless, in an attempt to beautify the city in preparation for a visit from Queen Elizabeth II. It occurred to me during this song, the band's skill of working the crowd. Lewis, with his newly-grown dreadlocks flying everywhere, was storming the stage, egging the crowd on to clap and dance. This made it feel like a more audience-inclusive event. The following track, Kai Tangata, saw the mosh pit at its most intense yet, with a brutal ‘circle pit’ (if you don’t know what this is, there are plenty of YouTube videos) erupting during the intro, and then a ‘wall of death’, in which the crowd splits down the middle, into two halves, which then run into each other (also plenty of YouTube videos) occurring during the track’s breakdown. After Kai Tangata, the band took a break from playing to take a photo with the crowd (a tradition at their shows). Henry then addressed the crowd asking if the band could use the show to get some footage for an upcoming music video! The crowd was silent as they listened carefully to his instructions. They were asked to move to the back of the room, then march forward, to the rhythm of a drum played by Henry. Acting almost like a tribe, we did what our leader had commanded of us. It was repeated 3 times to get enough footage, and I look forward to seeing the outcome soon!
After this, we heard Raupatu, a song about land confiscation. The song’s riff and higher speed indicate that this is one of the band's older songs, with a much heavier influence from 80s thrash metal bands like Slayer and Metallica. We were then treated to another, yet-to-be-released track from the new album, called ‘Buried Underground’. To me, this song, and ‘Tangaroa’ indicate that the new Alien Weaponry album will be talked about as one of the best metal releases of 2021. The set concluded with ‘Ru Ana Te Whenua’, the first song the band ever released with exclusively Maori lyrics. The outro of this song provoked yet another gigantic ‘circle pit’ amongst the now sweat-drenched crowd of moshers. At the conclusion of the song, Lewis reminded us that the band would be hanging out at the merch table to meet everyone and that there was an after-party, to celebrate the end of their New Zealand tour, at the Ding Dong Lounge on Wyndham Street, and everyone (over 18) was invited. He then thanked the crowd for coming, and that was that. The show was over.
I will finish this gig review by saying a huge thank you to everyone at the Alien Weaponry camp for making this such a special night for me and everyone else in attendance.
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Gig photos - credited to 13thfloor.co.nz
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Matt
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You already know how special this night was, and still is to me and it wouldn’t have happened without you, so massive thanks and much love.
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Lewis, Henry and Turanga.
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It is amazing watching your exciting musical journey over the years, and how you have grown, both as musicians and people. I’m so honoured to call you my friends and I cannot wait to hear the new album.
Love you Uncle Raupata, Monkey Boy and Turanga.
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