Blissful beats and brutality mingled at Fred Again.
Blissful beats and brutality mingled at Fred Again.
Is he an over-excitable hype machine – or is there substance behind the bedroom boffin’s antics?
It started with a fight.
In full view of thousands snaking in queues outside Spark Arena, two punters being ejected from the venue voiced their disappointment by brawling with security.
Closed-fist roundhouse punches were swung.
Thankfully, none seemed to connect.
Afterwards, a security guard looked at me, flicked his eyes upwards and said: “It’s worse than last night.”
By that he meant Fred Again’s first Auckland show on Tuesday, a “pop-up” concert organised months in advance but announced just a week ago, causing tickets to sell out in a few frenzied minutes.
Stuff described that gig as violent, with “scuffles,” “punches,” “vomit on the toilet seat” and a “completely obliterated” crowd.
By 8.45pm, Fred Again’s second show was living up to that description.
Someone had, to put it politely, hurled chunks all over the venue’s floor.
Standing in the drinks queue, I stopped breathing through my nose then watched as two more guards manhandled another man – they were all men – out of the mosh.
All was going well until they hit that soiled section of the floor.
Once one guard had slipped in the chunks, all three fell to the ground.
A flailing wrestling match ensued, a messy tangle of arms, legs, attempted headlocks, walkie talkie wires and …
You know what else.
It is a mystery to me why Fred Again causes such an aggressive ruckus wherever he goes.
He errs on the gentler side of EDM, his wistful, ethereal and thoroughly enchanting bedroom beats breaking big on social media during various Covid lockdowns.
So, when Fred Again arrived on stage last night, it wasn’t with a bass-heavy scene-setter, a dubstep eruption, or a show of power to test Spark’s audio system.
The man born Frederick Gibson began singing ‘Kyle (i found you)’, a somber song full of spoken-word poetry performed while sitting at a keyboard.
Yep, the man billed as a Coachella-headlining EDM titan opened with a ballad – a big, sweeping epic enlivened by a series of at-home snapshots up on the big screen.
Making intimacy work on a mass scale was the night’s major theme.
Fred Again does this with staggeringly clever production, his guest vocalists showcased through rotating videos, the house lights flicked on to highlight the crowd, and a cloud-blue sky hovering over those on the floor.
He does it by running through his fans to perform on a smaller stage with a mini-Kanye floating box hanging over his head. “I’m just fucking around,” he said after the brooding intensity of ‘Rumble’. “I don’t want this to end.”
And he does it by getting his flatmate and the night’s opening act Joy Anonymous to stand in the crowd to perform, his beaming face broadcast up on those big screens.
Holy wow did it connect.
It was a masterful performance, Fred Again’s control of mood and tone as captivating as the music itself.
During ‘Angie (i've been lost),’ I watched women on shoulders embrace, men throw shapes over the barrier, and phones get held aloft as voices unified to reach an epic crescendo.
Then there was the guy behind me, who hoisted his mate into the air, like this:
It was a special moment during a special show, one that ended a slammed, stacked and supersized summer with the exclamation point it desperately needed.
But it did something else too.
Fred Again came here as an over-excitable hype machine working in real time, but he’s leaving having proved there’s real substance behind all that marketing nous.
Next time, this show won’t be at Spark Arena, it will be somewhere much bigger: probably Eden Park.
So, it won’t be the dumb fights and hurled chunks that will linger longest in my mind.
It will be the walk back to the car as smiling fans chanted their favourite moments from different songs at each other.
“Put you loving arms around me,” echoed around Beach Road.
“Calm me down,” could be heard down Anzac Ave.
“I adore you … I adore you.”
That one was me, sitting in the car, after the show.
Just like Fred Again, I didn’t want the night to end either.
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Awesome review Chris; I love how you capture the experience of actually being at the show, not just the act. Keep it up!
Great review Chris.