The Hollies put on a great show
It was a big lie. But an exultant one.
‘‘Now you’re starting to look young!’’ Hollies lead singer Peter Howarth cried as the riff for Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress swept through a risen Stadium Southland crowd on Monday night.
The hell we were. Not even in the forgiving dancing illumination of the stage’s spotlights.
We were middle-agers and then some. Earlier, when Howarth had tried to get even a few arms in the air in the opening songs, the result seemed to be a mass outbreak of arthritis.
Turns out Voltaren Emulgel has nothing like the relieving, even healing, properties of pop-rock classics.
This, see, wasn’t one of those nostalgia acts that really stand only as reminders about how good a band used to be.
This was about how good they were on Monday night.
These rock’n’roll hall-of-famers hadn’t come to remind us that dozens of their songs were massive hits.
They’d come to show why.
And there it all was. The contained excitements of those three-part harmonies, the guitar work that went from jangling 1960s authenticity to the are-you-listeningLindsay-Buckingham solo heroics (Look Through Any Window – wowser). And sooften-superb songcraft.
Lead guitarist-backing vocalist Tony Hicks and drummer Bobby Elliott have been with the band since 1963. So that’s 55 years apiece.
Elliott – a man whose music industry reputation is such he’s entitled to call fanboys like Phil Collins Sonny Jim, and probably would – plays with understated gravitas.
Hicks even now seems a youthful presence. It’s an open question whether this is because, or in spite of, the fact that he was a 17-year-old when he joined the band. The man’s probably an elf.
Yes, the famed likes of lead singer Allan Clarke are gone. But 2300 Southlanders stand ready to testify that Howarth is no less a singer. Just as importantly, he and other comparative newbies are fully infused with The Hollies DNA.
They weren’t heavy, but they surely seemed to be brothers.
The singalongs started hesitantly, with the Southlanders only tentatively expressing their love for Jennifer Eccles. But resistance was futile in the evocations of Carrie Anne, Bus Stop, On a Carousel, Stop Stop Stop a stonking I’m Alive and (this was a hit only in New Zealand – who knew?) Magic Woman Touch. If this concert was about the past informing the present then there’s one song the audience will take away with them as a rarity in this context.
Howarth introduced it as ‘‘something you’ve never heard in your life before . . .’’
The song called Priceless is a heartfelt love song from that robust septuagenarian Elliott, a man who you’d call sappy at your peril. More than pretty, it was disarmingly touching when performed by his writing collaborator Howarth.
He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother probably wasn’t, strictly speaking, the musical highlight of the evening. More of a balance – or fair fight, anyway – between one glorious set of vocals and fair bit of southern bellowing.
Then the climax. The Air that I Breathe was an elegant exhalation, leading into a loose Long Cool Woman, harmony-free as ever but energised by that riff and a hearty call-and-response climax.
And then the crowd spilled out into the night. Still not looking young, but you better believe they were feeling rejuvenated.