Vera Ellen
Neck of the Woods, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Saturday, July 25th
Vera Ellen‘s musical career has spanned various names, continents, and levels of stability for the past decade.
Many of us were first introduced as Flying Nun picked up her debut record It’s Your Birthday in 2021, produced after she jetted off to Los Angeles and founded Girl Friday.
When she returned to Aotearoa New Zealand, an AMA win for Best Alternative Artist followed the pandemic’s final traces, and she got to work on her incredible 2023 follow-up Ideal Home Noise which netted her the Taite Music Prize.
She returned to lo-fi home recordings on the heartbreak for jetlag EP (featuring the most gut-wrenching duet with Hans Pucket’s Oliver Devlin) before a series of incredible shows across Australia, the UK, and Europe gave her the ammunition for her most recent release, 2026’s Heaven Knows What Time.
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Unfortunately, Ellen and crew had no choice but to switch venues from Hollywood Avondale to Neck of the Woods as the cost-of-living crisis stretched punters’ ability to go out and buy tickets. With the venue having recently gone through its own financial troubles and subsequent community momentum, the show felt right at home inside the Karangahape Road venue regardless.
Jungle DJ CC:ME kept the bass heavy from the moment the doors opened, mixing together tracks that could have come from a PS1 soundtrack with modern cuts and local vocals in between them.
As openers Another Fucking Problem took to the stage to prepare their instruments, some strange, accidentally harmonic guitar notes managed to blend well against the beats as CC:ME bought down the mixer to let them play.
Image: Another Fucking Problem Credit: Isabella Rose Young
Beyond their band name being a lot of fun to say, Another Fucking Problem (AFP) have typically been seen across hardcore lineups rather than indie gigs. In fact, both of Ellen’s openers sat in heavy contrast to each other and the headliner, with bass-boosted footwork and juke tracks being immediately contradicted by AFP’s guttural screaming and spoken word anger.
Auckland union secretary Tali Williams threw her body into her voice, yelling out protest-driven lyrics against short tracks that came and went in a daze. Williams spoke between tracks about how the night was a family affair, herself being the sister of Ellen and her bandmate Albert Rivers. Even as the room packed in, Ellen stood at the very front having the time of her life watching her sister perform.
Ellen then started her set with “A Grip” from Ideal Home Noise, which emulates the softer folk sounds of heartbreak for jetlag and her earlier EPs.
After the slight throwback intro, Ellen and her band launched into her new album in full. Opening tracks “spit @ the sky” and “big shot jr” immediately got the crowd moving as the vocalists harmonised on stage, but the sombre nature of these tracks was still felt in the air. There’s a way Ellen tends to compose her songs, around key refrains and melodies that can be repeated endlessly with each passing line carrying more weight than the last.
Image: Vera Ellen Credit: Isabella Rose Young
The beat picked up on lead single “gayfever”, dedicated to the queers of the crowd, instigating a singalong.
A variety of projected visuals adorned the back wall, intentionally distorted and flicking between disconcerting film imagery of eyes, scenes, and other textures that could be found between frames of horror films. Ben Lemi took on Hemi Hemingway’s vocals on “when it’s over”, pushing forth his baritone to emulate the crooner’s abilities.
Ellen composed the band through “hunger is just a memory” and closer “getting told off my mum” (“Never a good feeling”, Ellen said on stage). Every band member was incessantly in sync, singing different, overlapping lines while the hook went back and forth between spoken word and the chorus.
After they finished playing the album, they admitted the stage was a bit too small to pretend they wouldn’t do an encore, closing the night with two more tracks from 2023 and choosing the most brutal of the lot, “Broadway Junction”, the most raw Ellen has ever been on tape. But it could only have been played before the last track of Ideal Home Noise, “Stick Around 2 See”, left the crowd in a hopeful state.
Check out Vera Ellen’s upcoming tour dates here.
