The Nudge live at Wellington Botanic Gardens

Last night I saw this band...

When I first met this guy (in my usual capacity at my not-important day job) I figured him for a musician: he had that vibe, you know - tall, dreadlocked, heroically blessed in both beard and teeth.  His last name struck some kind of half-memory chord in me as well, so when he left I googled him.

Please note: I do not make a regular thing out of googling strangers.  That would be wrong.  And peculiar.

Turns out his name is James Coyle and he has clocked up some impressive musical credits under his completely awesome alternate moniker Reverend Black Keys.  He is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a keyboard player.  On top of that he is a hard-line reggae fan and a collector of keyboards and organs.  He is also one of the nicest damn people I have ever had the pleasure of randomly meeting so when he told me on Friday that he was playing the ASB Gardens Magic show the following night I assured him that I would head along.  And I meant it.

The ASB Gardens Magic show is a series of free open-air gigs held at the sound-shell in the Wellington Botanical Gardens.  They run this thing yearly, scraping together financial support from businesses (this year, thank you ASB) and the Wellington City Council.  Typically it falls over a couple of weeks in whatever it is that Wellington has passing for summer that year.  By-the-by that's Wellington, New Zealand.  Just so you know.

I arrived just as the first hush of dusk was creeping over the gardens.  It was a rough evening, the wind tattering through the bush and biting at the buildings.  The sky constantly threatened rain.  The grassy stretch in front of the soundshell was already starting to fill up with small huddles of twenty-somethings, hipsters in the wild.  The band hadn't taken the stage yet and low-key reggae music was playing through the sound system.  Where I sat a sign advising people not to climb into the flowerbeds kept getting lifted by the wind and battering lightly against my head.  It was not unlike being gently flogged with a manilla folder.

They dress the gardens up quite beautifully for these occasions, painting the various trees in different coloured lights.  A clever installation piece had been set over a nearby pond - a series of illuminated orbs suspended above their reflections in the black water.  One low-weeping tree was hung with mirror-balls of various sizes, catching and refracting the lights beamed at it from several points.  In case your wondering, the Wellington Botanical Gardens basically looks how you picture NZ Native bush: dense trees, huge ferns, everything damp and green and ancient-seeming, only in the gardens it's better cultivated and there's ample  wide paths to walk.  Also, ducks.

Coyle is MCing these concerts and he took the stage just as the area really started to fill.  He did the usual banter and then announced that the band to play, his band, were The Nudge.  Now, I'd heard the name before, read an article about them some time ago.  I remember I'd been curious at the time.  I don't remember much else.  I'd figured I was in for an evening of chilled-out reggae/roots sounds (Coyle being an avowed reggae fan and Wellington's musical scene being weirdly dominated by the vibe) but as soon as the guitarist/vocalist - Ryan Prebble - took the stage dressed in a sort of pseudo-Eastern take on a Sgt Pepper's costume and a top hat it became clear that things were going in a different direction.  He set the keyboards to play a weird oscillating tone not unlike that of a glass harmonica (exactly the way sunlight glinting off ice would sound, if it were rendered in musical form).  He then fetched up his guitar and laid down a psyched-out guitar riff, presently joined by the drummer - Iraia Whakamoe - who added his own intense, tribal pulse to the song, spurring the mantra-like rhythm onward.  Coyle then returned (having changed from his MC outfit into something more thematic) and fleshed out the keyboard pattern with some denser bass tones.  All this paired with a repeating vocal phrase, issued in a back-of-the-throat rasp by Prebble, gave the vibe of a really tight jam band.  Now I know enough of this stuff to know where this vibe is heading and sure enough, layer after layer the song built and built until finally in a cathartic rush the song blossomed in a starburst of sound: keyboards erupting into a barrage of siren noise, the drums pounded down as though Whakamoe didn't want to see them getting up again, and the guitar spitting an acid lead break.

Through the applause the band dove straight into the second piece of the night: a dirty blues-boogie that had a whiff of early Sabbath about it.  So that's how the night was to be: a thrilling display of pyched-out blues rock, played by three very fine musicians who seemed to feed off one another.  Man, what I'm saying is the band was tight.

Incidentally, I hope nobody is expecting me to name any of these songs as the band didn't announce them and I didn't even know who I was going to see before I showed up on the night.  It didn't matter.  A great song is a great song and these were all great songs.

The keys remained psychedelic and astonishing, whether they were set to that glorious Seventies' farfisa organ sound or conjuring delicate waves breaking on a Bali shoreline, whale song, or at one particularly memorable bit - the sound of a jet engine imploding.  And the drums, man, Whakamoe is a very precise drummer - tightening and loosening the rhythmic pulse in perfect fit with the rest of the band.  He repeatedly used his hits to build and release the tension of the piece while always spurring the music onwards.  Prebble on guitar is a thing to behold - now, I'm a huge fan of a heavy blues riff and those were in ample supply on the night, that coupled with his psyched-out leads and the odd surf-esque roll made for something plenty special.  As a vocalist he's delightfully unhinged: possessed of a rough-edged blues rasp and a tendency to sound almost as if he's gargling the words.  He growls, pants and howls his way through the songs - an id who can carry a tune.

The dark crept over the venue and the trees lit up all in otherworldly colours.  A hoard of people moved in sketched-out silhouettes against the front of the stage.  From somewhere amongst the lights a device regularly issued clouds of tiny bubbles that drifted on the weirdly still air - the wind had disappeared as soon as the band took the stage.

Eventually after a couple of damn fine and very energetic encores the band were out of time and the audience were left to drift off into the strange, phantom-lit world of the botanical gardens after dark.  The wind picked up again shortly after that and pounded me in the face on the walk home.  It was a great night.

So that's it.  If you get the chance to see the Nudge performing live, I say take it, it's a wild ride and I know I'll be keeping an eye out for their albums from here on in.

And here's some links...

http://www.thenudge.co.nz/
http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2013/asb-gardens-magic/wellington
http://nudge.bandcamp.com/