Gig Review: AACACIA, Mitch James and Drax Project
AACACIA, Mitch James and Drax Project took the stage at the Christchurch Town Hall on Saturday, 3rd July. I went along to see these amazing acts perform and to let you know what an experience it was. There are not enough words other than ‘amazing’ to say the least about all three acts!
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A little hesitant to go as bigger gigs can sometimes cause me some anxiety, it was well worth it and the worry melted away after meeting some friends outside. We waited in the freezing cold for over two hours until the doors opened, discussing how excited we were (and also how cold we were!)
7pm rolled around. 7:01pm. 7:02pm. 7:03pm. Doors were finally opened 3 minutes late and we were all reeling with excitement and were ready to run for our lives for the barrier to be front row warriors, like we all are at gigs.
AACACIA
AACACIA doing her thing, 3rd July, 2021.
7:20pm - Incredible girl power hit the stage in the form of a stunner of a lady, AACACIA. I’d never heard her music before and some friends had said some great things about her talent. She surely did not disappoint at all. AACACIA brings the energy to the stage and you can see that she loves what she does and gives her heart to performing. Having only four songs on Spotify at the time of publication of this blog, she has racked up an impressive 176,000+ plays on her track, Runaway. Insane.
New Zealand music, I personally feel, lacks a lot of female talent, as there certainly are more male musicians that have taken over, rather than female musicians and I feel that over the coming years, AACACIA and other acts like her are going to change that and bring the fresh taste of music to the table, allowing both genders to be equal on the scale of our music scene, which is how it should be.
Her vocals are pretty on point, too. You can tell that a lot of preparation had gone into her opening performance, which won the crowd over. Really looking forward to seeing her live again hopefully soon!
MITCH JAMES
Mitch James performing at the Christchurch Town Hall, 3rd July 2021.
8:30pm - I’ve been a big Mitch James fan coming up on 3 years now - having listened to him a little later than a lot of friends who discovered him a year earlier, but that hasn’t stopped me from becoming a massive fan. Every Mitch show is really amazing, but I do just have to mention that the crowd on Saturday night absolutely MADE it even more astounding. When Mitch came on stage, the room lit up with sounds of cheering, clapping and shouting in excitement. Christchurch honestly went off and there was no doubt in the world that everyone in that hall will have absolutely wonderful memories of the night for the rest of their lives. Mitch was so happy and smiling through his entire set (when he wasn’t singing, of course!) and even treated us to a couple of unreleased songs such as Picture of You in Japan (we need this song to be released so our ears can be taken back to heaven because that song is absolutely beautiful) and Stone Cold Sober, which he played with Kenji, his hilarious guitar player, who has all of the amazing faces to pull on stage and the best dance moves, too.
One of the very first lines in Stone Cold Sober is “I got lucky like a five leaf clover” and when I met Mitch last in July 2019, he wrote out these lyrics for me to get a tattoo of them and then in September 2019, I proceeded to get these inked, in Mitch’s handwriting. Pretty special. That song means a lot to me because of that line of lyrics and how genuinely chill it is when listening to it. During the song, I rolled up the sleeve of the dress I was wearing and pointed to the tattoo, along with a few friends who did the same and Kenji noticed and acknowledged that he remembered there was some crazy fangirl out there with a Mitch James tattoo in his handwriting. Okay, he probably wasn’t thinking that, but he definitely smiled and acknowledged. Highlight of the night. One of many.
Mitch’s handwriting! Now permanently on my body since September 2019.
Seeing Mitch’s eyes light up when he realised that the audience were lapping up his performance was absolutely on a whole other level. My friends and I were in the front row, rocking out to him singing his heart out with his band who consists of Corbin, Hannah and Kenji - all very talented and fun humans who were clearly having a blast being there, too.
Mitch is the type of human that when you see him after a while of not seeing him, you are reminded of how incredible being in the same room with him again is and you will just fall back in love with his music all over again. Having opened for Ed Sheeran and making waves overseas, he hasn’t let the fame get to his head and is still genuinely down-to-earth and caring, just as he was when I first met him in September 2018 and that came across on Saturday night, as it usually does. Mitch is the kindest, most genuine person.
While performing his smash hit, 21, he got the audience to sing some of the chorus and everybody poured their souls into singing that back to him, as loud as we possibly could. It was a perfect moment.
Other songs he performed were ones we all knew, too - such as his latest single, Be Somebody, Bright Blue Skies (you bet I sung “I don’t need your shit no more!” with so much passion I could’ve almost burst), All The Ways to Say Goodbye and of course, he sung one of his favourite 90s mash-ups with Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time, among other hits from that era.
His set was a lot. A lot in a good way. It had been a very long time for me personally not being front at a gig of Mitch’s (last time was at Bay Dreams South in January this year and that was way off to the side), all of the good memories and vibes from his previous gigs came flooding back. The beautiful hour of standing there watching Mitch absolutely smashing it across that town hall stage, standing on speakers, letting everyone make his night as much as he was making ours - it was such a wonderful experience and you just cannot fault a show of his with that kind of energy.
I never get emotional at gigs, however, felt overwhelmed with emotion after he had performed one of his new songs. That takes a special kind of person to make someone else feel that way.
As soon as the set started, it was over. Too quickly in everyone’s honest opinion. We could have stood there all night just blissing out to Mitch and his amazing band. We didn’t want him to end, but we were all very excited for the next act, too! Unfortunately, there was no encore to be heard this time around, but much appreciation and admiration for Mitch, always - we look forward to the encore next time.
DRAX PROJECT
Shaan Singh from Drax Project, 3rd July, 2021.
9:50pm - Time for the infamous Drax Project to take the stage and once again, blow everyone away with their multi-instrumental fun and rapid stage presence. Shaan came on stage with what we’d probably call a “loud shirt” and looked totally awesome in it! There were big cheers from everyone as soon as they came out of their greenroom - everybody was ready to experience the magic that is Drax Project once again! (Or, for some, the first time).
The opener of their set was their smash hit, Firefly, which actually features the lovely AACACIA, so she came back out and performed that with the guys, a very fun few minutes with that song.
Drax Project are another band that you know will really give you a good time and that, they did. When looking up at the seated stalls, you could see there was absolutely nobody up there who was not out of their seats dancing - which is what you want to see when you go to a gig - everyone enjoying themselves.
Sam Thomson and Matt Beachen from Drax Project, 3rd July 2021.
I must admit, I was going to get out of the front row once Drax came on - not because they aren’t absolutely fantastic, but because the moshpit can definitely get a bit hectic at a Drax show (speaking from previous experience!), however, it was perfectly nice - nobody was pushing and shoving, everyone was there to just be excited by the music and seeing their boys.
There was a lot of movement up there - Ben and Shaan moved about quite a lot and of course, also used the big speakers behind the barrier to interact with the crowd, shaking hands with them and acknowledging the fact that we were there.
They played some catchy new songs such as Fashion Sense and one called Crazy. Fashion Sense was definitely the hit of the night, with the guys bringing attention to the clothes they were wearing to obviously fit with the title of the song.
If you’ve never been to a Drax show before, then you won’t know this, but they do a really great cover of Pony by Ginuwine. Yes, the lyrics are a little sexual, however, they get so much engagement when they perform the cover and it is just a fun song to dance to.
They also performed their first hit, Woke Up Late, alternating between the English version and the Maori version - the whole song really came together when they mixed the two languages! We love diversity in music and life. That is very, very important. Shaan also sung another song that he had written completely in Maori and believe me, it felt like there was a chill in the air when he filled that hall with his powerful voice - I was stunned.
Towards the end of the night, things got interesting when one of my friends beside me got to sing for a few seconds - she was embarrassed, everyone else loved it. What a bucketlist experience that would’ve been for anyone!
To finish off the night, the guys performed a couple more of their hits and then the encores came - the first being something a little different. Shaan said that Drax Project started out as himself and Matt busking on the famous Courtenay Place in Wellington, so the two of them stripped it back and took control of the wheel with a wee busking session. It was pretty amazing to go back and see how they started, given they have literally taken over the NZ music scene!
The Drax boys utilised their skills, with not just sticking to one instrument. From the sax, to guitars, keyboard, drums and bass - they truly used it all.
Ben O’Leary, 3rd July 2021.
What a time that was. Considering I went to 26 gigs in 2020, this one by far tops any in my 30 years of life and that is saying a lot!
Big shoutout to AACACIA, Mitch and all the Drax boys for the most wonderful, incredible time. That was magical and you are all so welcome back to our corner of the country at any time!
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Find all of the artists below -
AACACIA:
Spotify
Instagram
Facebook
Mitch James:
Drax Project: