Over the last few weeks, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington has been inundated with world-class concerts and DJ sets from the likes of Cate Le Bon, Chanel Beads, These New South Wales, Kelly Moran, Mei Semones, Snapped Ankles, Kavari, and Acid Mothers Temple. The vehicle for this barrage — a cluster of events that also included an absolutely bonkers Q&A after a screening of the Lydia Lunch documentary The War Is Never Over, and a bizarre avant-garde night market — was Lōemis, the capital’s annual midwinter arts festival.
That said, Wellington has never seen a Lōemis like the one we just passed through. The 2026 edition was on a whole other level compared to previous years.
Last Thursday night, the festival hit one of several high points when a capacity crowd gathered at Meow Nui to see the award-winning Māori actor, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Troy Kingi (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui), his band, and a plethora of guests present an exclusive performance of his most recent LP, Night Lords.
Since releasing Guitar Party at Uncle’s Bach through Lyttelton Records in 2016, Kingi has explored an extraordinary range of musical territory. Early on, he laid out a plan to record 10 albums across 10 different genres over 10 years. Along the way, his discography has been marked by incandescent moments such as his retrofuturistic space-funk record Shake That Skinny Ass All the Way to Zygertron (2017), the vintage roots reggae of Holy Colony Burning Acres (2019), and the pounding desert rock sensibilities that flow through Leatherman & the Mojave Green (2024).
Released in 2025, Night Lords is Kingi’s ninth album. While he was recording it, he was joined in the studio by an expansive cast of some of Aotearoa’s finest contemporary hip-hop and dancehall artists, including Manu from Mokomokai, MĀ, Diggy Dupé, Brandn Shiraz, Spycc and INF of SWIDT, Melodownz, Lucky Lance, Rubi Du, JessB, Adam Tukiri, and Tom Scott. The 10-album run is almost over, and what a run it has been.
Fittingly, eleven of the rappers and singers featured on Night Lords joined Kingi on stage at Meow Nui.
In retrospect, what occurred that evening was a genuine intergenerational moment on a scale I haven’t witnessed in the capital since Riki Gooch Pirihi’s psychedelic jazz-funk big band, Eru Dangerspiel, performed at the Wellington Town Hall sixteen years ago. If I were in my early twenties, I would have thought what Kingi and his friends shared with us was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. Gathering this many different artists for a single concert and presenting them in a cohesive, connected manner is no mean feat.
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Backed by the powerhouse trio of drummer Treye Liu, bassist Marika Hodgson, and keyboardist/trumpet player Guy Harrison, Kingi kicked off the Night Lords performance by bringing out Manu from Mokomokai. Over the next ten minutes, they established the evening’s format, repeating it with each guest. First, Kingi and his band performed a spot-on version of Mokomokai’s raunchy streaming hit “Jealous” with Manu, before switching into “Hori on a Hoiho” off Night Lords and closing out with “Tumeke” by Mokomokai.
For the next two hours, the stage rippled with life, as Kingi’s collaborators all put their absolute best foot forward while embracing the significance of the occasion.
On “Afters”, MĀ rapped in a loose, surrealist style, while Kingi crooned about looking for an afterparty to cap off the night. Diggy Dupé strode across the stage proudly, paying homage to the Polynesian Panthers and his Grey Lynn roots. Recent Aotearoa Music Award-winner Brandn Shiraz got the crowd jumping with Night Lords’ rap-funk-rock cut “No Heaven On Earth”, and Spycc and INF brought their streetwise Onehunga g-funk sensibilities to the fore, rhyming stylishly over squelchy synths and knocking rhythms.
Halfway through, I found myself briefly thinking about how much music Kingi, Liu, Hodgson, and Harrison had learned for this performance, and how effortless they made it feel.
They were giving guests like Melodownz, Lucky Lance, JessB, and Rubi Du the platform they needed to win the crowd over completely, but on every chorus, Kingi shone. He might have an understated demeanour and the humility that comes with realising life isn’t all about you, but he’s still absolutely one of our real-deal stars. When Tom Scott and Adam Tukiri joined him near the end of the performance on “Cold War”, the room absolutely exploded.
Earlier in the evening, MĀ warmed up the stage for Kingi with a small backing trio and guest appearances by singers Lila, Romi Wrights, and Iris Little. Their performance was relaxed, fun, and unassuming. MĀ loves Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and Te Whanganui-a-Tara loves her. She was the perfect spark to light the flame for everything that followed.
I hope Kingi and his community feel proud of what they accomplished at Meow Nui. It was a night to remember.
Find out more about Lōemis Festival here.
