Live at Spark Arena
15 November 2025
Live Review by Music Journalist: Paul Marshall
Let Love Rule, Lenny Kravitz Ignites Auckland: A Night of Fire, Funk and Full-Blown Rock Salvation.
There’s a particular kind of electricity that hangs in the air when a bona fide rock deity is about to walk onstage, and tonight at Spark Arena, that charge starts building early. Girls on Film by Duran Duran hums faintly through the PA, drowned beneath the excited roar of punters, some already half-cut, most buzzing, all waiting for the arrival of their leather-clad messiah.
It’s an eclectic Auckland crowd: glitter-splashed funk queens, middle-aged blokes in the uniform of suburban rebellion (collared shirts tucked into jeans), and the occasional 20-something glued to their phone, no doubt curating their “Lenny Live!” reels before anything has even begun. A perfect cross-section of the city: from aggressively average to fabulously extroverted.
The arena looks packed, despite the curious appearance of $79 tickets still floating around earlier in the day. Down in the VIP pit, drinks are already being sacrificed to the sticky floor gods as cups around me are knocked over in the pre-show scramble. The vibes are high, the lips are smiling, and the cost-of-living crisis seems conveniently forgotten for at least one night.
The stage is washed in a cold, smoke-filtered blue light, Arctic, almost ominous, as if hinting the coming storm. Then Psycho Killer by Talking Heads kicks in louder and larger, igniting the crowd into a sing along. By the chorus, Spark Arena is singing like its collective life depends on it. And then, Bang!, lights drop.
Cue “Set It Off,” by Brooklyn native Strafe.
Cue pandemonium.
Cue Lenny.
He strides out with a four-piece band, dressed exactly how a rock star in the 21st century should dress: electric-blue leather jacket, jeans tailored within an inch of their life, and, hidden beneath, a sequinned top shimmering like a promise yet to be kept, all topped off with rockstar shades.
By track three, “TK421” the stage has expanded to a mini-orchestra: sax, keys, and two backing singers who bring the gospel when required and the groove when demanded. Two more players appear next: trumpet and alto sax, turning Spark Arena into a full-tilt funkadelic carnival.
After a scorching “Always on the Run”, Lenny takes a mid-stage victory lap, basking in the noise and coaxing even more. Then he finally speaks.
“New Zealand…”
A pause thick enough to chew.
“All I can say, is what is wrong with me that it took me my whole life to get here? New Zealand, I feel your love, I feel your power, I needed this.”
Cue swooning. Cue envy. Cue 61-year-old Lenny performing with the swagger of a man who’s found the fountain of youth and decided to wear it as cologne.
“Stillness of Heart” comes drenched in cinematic haze, old-school stage smoke rolling like fog escaping a thriller set while video screens show a woman languidly smoking a joint. Behind me, a woman shrieks, “That’s my song!” With the solo, the arena erupts into a mass of unashamed air-guitar theatrics. Rock is not dead. It’s right here, sweating through denim.
After “Believe,” Lenny disappears for a quick regroup backstage, leaving the crowd suspended mid-breath. When he returns, he drops “Honey,” the standout from 2024’s Blue Electric Light, a track that lands live with even more juice than the studio version.
The influences, Prince’s sensual pulse, Michael Jackson’s precision funk, are unmistakable and lovingly woven into a performance that’s both nostalgic and blindingly fresh. Everyone is dancing. Even the middle-aged men, who typically only move like this when a lawnmower cord jams.
All the while, the stage crew, dressed head-to-toe in black, dart across the stage like stealth ninjas, swapping guitars, shifting amps, pushing pedals, keeping the engine humming.
At one point, Lenny spreads his arms wide, soaking in the thunder. “I’m Lenny Kravitz and I’m never leaving New Zealand!” The place detonates.
A lovely lady I’d met the night before at the whiskey bar had told me she’d be here tonight. Instead, she had to fly to Sydney at the last minute. She unfortunately missed a hell of a show, one packed with fire cannons, pyros cracking the air, and heat blasts from the front of the stage like being slapped by the sun’s own astronomical gamma rays.
By now, the arena is one pulsing organism: couples hugging, strangers swaying, everyone rising higher with each track. A cocktail of rock, soul, funk and jazz, delivered with the kind of sincerity and passion that bypasses the ears and goes straight to the heart.
Kravitz has never been short on hits, like in his early days writing with Ingrid Chavez, the ethereal Minneapolis poet who quite literally bumped into Prince in ’87 and wound up co-crafting Madonna’s whispered provocation “Justify My Love.” It’s a reminder that long before stadiums echoed his name, Kravitz was already shaping the sound of a generation from behind the curtain. Rock folklore still debates whether Kravitz and Madonna ever actually had a fling or if it was pure record-label myth making. Tonight, it doesn’t matter. The music is enough.
The main set ends with the inevitable juggernaut, “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” The crowd goes Supernova.
And then the encore:
“Let Love Rule.”
Kravitz begins onstage, but by the first chorus he’s off it, moving through the front rows, hugging fans, high-fiving outstretched hands. Security flanks him like a presidential motorcade as he snakes around the entire stadium floor. At one point he appears on the sound engineer’s platform, leading an a cappella sing-along that feels like a mass baptism in funk-gospel redemption.
He returns to the stage for the final chorus, lingering as long as humanly possible. You can see it in his body language: he doesn’t want the night to end. Neither do we.
And then he’s gone.
The lights rise.
The spell breaks.
But for two hours in Auckland, Lenny Kravitz ruled.
And love, undeniably, ruled with him.
The Set List:
- Bring It On
- Dig In
- TK421
- Always On The Run
- I Belong To You
- Stillness Of Heart
- Believe
- Honey
- Paralyzed
- Low
- The Chamber
- I’ll Be Waiting
- It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over
- Again
- American Woman
- Fly Away
- Are You Gonna Go My Way
(Encore)
18. Let Love Rule
Reviewer: Paul Marshall
Photography by Paul Marshall
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