Music

The music, performance and art party that is Splore-City is almost upon us; it’s shaking up Auckland’s Town Hall on 11th and 12th February with amazing local and international acts…

I would give St Jerome’s Laneway Festival 2011 in Auckland a 10/10. Great bands, great sound quality, fashionable/good looking people everywhere, great vibes, fast queues, pass-outs, friendly security – the works, really. It was all very, very good…

Free daily activities are centred at Aotea Square, reinvented as the Festival Garden; a performance and entertainment space with four hubs; Spiegeltent, the Garden Theatre, the TV3 Garden Stage, and the Stoneleigh Bar…

Madeleine Brighouse, our Thread teen blogger and Doc Marten’s Ambassador, is at Parachute bringing us the highlights of the festival. "Weather was terrible on Friday – it just kept raining and raining! It was the first time I saw Avalanche City and they blew me away…"

It’s festival season! There’s so much good music coming our way. Madeleine Brighouse is off to Parachute as our Thread teen blogger. Madz tells us her thirteen essentials to get through a weekend away at Parachute – or any Festival for that matter…

New Zealander/Ghanaian/Brit Leila Adu’s Ode to the Unknown Factory Worker is certainly not your average mainstream pop album. Full of dissonance with thin vocals, stifling song breaks, tempo changes and devoid of a beat on many tracks…

“Newfoundland” was released only a couple of months ago, but it genuinely feels like an old record. We also recommend you see the Auckland band, Great North, play its passionate live set at the Wine Cellar whenever you can…

Time machines, failed rock bands, surprising lift encounters, jelly setting, water nymphs, Shakespeare, the Chatham Islands, speed dating and a men’s knitting group. Yep – they are all in the Auckland Fringe from 26 February to 13 March 2010…

There is no need for any quaffle about ‘critical subjectivity’; this is what I think – pure, and simple says Theo Sangster. So without further ado, here are my favourites for the year, from Avalanche City through Erykah Badu to Janelle Monae…