Tiki Taane and Uncle Silverback - 12 January 2024

A free gig at Te Papa's amphitheatre. We had a sesh outside Circa: very different to the last time that all 3 of us were at Te Papa... Gary, Jeffery and myself, along with Kate, who is a fellow activist and former Daktory member. - Uncle Silverback: funky instruments, live-mixing and looping trombone and bass with percussive samples. Feels like a medley. Gigantic crowd: this is the biggest gig that I've been to for a while. Easily several hundred, possibly more. This isn't my cup of tea gigwise, as it's heavily amplified, but I like Tiki's music and his politics -- he's one of the select few cannabis suit wearers alongside Dakta Christ, Gary and the Reverend. I love electronic music, but I find the gigs to be rather dull. I found a quiet spot that was fairly good to watch from. - Some classical mindset chatter: to us, exclusivity is a selling point as we crowd into acoustically designed spaces to hear unamplified voices and instruments perform pieces by old, obscure Europeans. The Te Papa amphitheatre isn't a real one. The stage was just a normal stage, and there weren't any of those panels at the back of the stage that real amphitheaters have. New music (contemporary classical) is more inclusive, but it usually feels like camp, kitsch or pretentious condescending when they use pop-style elements. Tiki totally crushed it on the loop pedals, and all my classical peers felt somewhat basic by comparison. Better than Don, though I haven't seen Don's solo act, so that's not quite an apples and apples comparison. Punk-Latin New Wave is something of a parody song, taking aim at pretension within both pop and classical, even though it was actually written for a jazz band that I was in during high school. I love novelty hits, so this is my attempt to do that. - Tiki Taane: he's got the goods and he brung it 110%. My thing is like Rakim - understated, like a dirty love letter. Tiki's totally extroverted, with tight rhythm and consumate showmanship. It struck me that he probably doesn't write songs with jokes in them, despite a lot of laughs in his act. His comedy is a physical thing, and also part of his interplay with the audience. A gimmick that became a running gag was that he got an audience member to livestream from his phone during the gig. Everyone got up onto their feet, which obscured my view during the solo jam session. Freestyle raps and guitar riffs, plus some thumping bass. - Always on my mind - I remember when this was a hit. Tiki got the crowd involved and made a point of saying that the ladies always drown out the men during the singalong. I agree! that's a total Pākehā thing. 🤣 He got that all heated up with an accelerando finish, then it turned out that there were another 10 minutes in the set. Tiki sang a love song that he wrote for his wife, which was an up-tempo ska vibe with a techno beat. In his freestyles he said that he was a jack of all trades.. I'd say he's a master of some, particularly as a fellow guitarist. 👍🏻