Live at The Powerstation
25 June 2026
Live Review by Music Journalist: Paul Marshall
Some concerts feel like celebrations. Others feel like private gatherings. Tonight was the latter.
Walking into The Powerstation, the closed upstairs balcony immediately hinted that ticket sales hadn't matched The Veils' reputation. Downstairs, the crowd was an eclectic mix of paisley shirts, black band tees, flowing dresses, middle-aged fans and younger hipsters.
I can't remember seeing The Powerstation this empty so close to showtime. Even some of the photographers skipped the pit, choosing instead to shoot from the crowd, where the view was arguably better.
Opening the evening was Jazmine Mary, whose unconventional art-pop immediately divided the room. As silence fell, Jazmine took a swig from a bright orange can before launching into a fragmented opening song that repeatedly stopped while she counted, "One... two... three... four..." It was quirky, awkward and certainly memorable.
Visually, the contrast worked. The backing band looked effortlessly cool in matching white turtlenecks while Jazmine, dressed entirely in black, cut a darker, more mysterious figure. Heavy reverb blanketed the vocals throughout the set, occasionally swallowing even the between-song banter. Introducing Narcotics Anonymous, the microphone remained soaked in effects, a rare lapse from the sound desk.
Jazmine's offbeat personality shone through with comments like, "Look at you all with your clothes and little faces... I imagine you as a field of flowers."
The standout was Drunk At The Gym. Its rolling bass line carried a familiar feel reminiscent of Nirvana's About A Girl without ever copying it, giving the song an instant sense of comfort and making it the clear highlight of the support set.
Following a shared backline changeover, the stage briefly became a workshop.
Engineers darted around checking cables while the fold back technician wrestled momentarily with a missing violin signal before finally winning the battle just in time.
And then, as if none of it had ever mattered, Finn Andrews simply walked on.
“Alright… how you doing?”
Just a man, a piano, and a room still shaking off its own uncertainty.
Seated at centre stage, The Veils opened with Aurora, the title track from their new record Fragile World. It began stripped bare, Andrews alone at the grand piano, his voice weathered but steady, carrying that familiar ache like something half-remembered. Soft harmonies hovered around him like dust in late light.
Then, just over a minute in, the transformation: the full band entered not so much as an addition, but as a detonation of colour. The song didn’t swell, it erupted. Suddenly the room was no longer watching a performance, it was inside it, surrounded by an enormous, cinematic wall of sound.
High Hopes followed, rich with the kind of layered textures and ghost-lit harmonies that have become The Veils’ signature across eight studio albums. Signed to Rough Trade while still a teenager, Finn Andrews has spent over two decades building songs that drift between gothic folk, bruised rock, and widescreen cinematic unease. It’s no accident directors like David Lynch, Tim Burton, and Paolo Sorrentino have reached for this music when they need emotional weather rather than just soundtrack.
Then came the shift.
Finn stepped away from the piano and returned carrying a battle-scarred vintage Fender Stratocaster that looked like it had survived several lifetimes of touring. It probably has.
Swimming With The Crocodiles landed hard, tight, groove-heavy, immediate. The crowd snapped to attention, cheers cutting through the mix. Someone yelled “Hell yeah!” and it felt entirely appropriate.
And then the system cracked.
The microphone exploded into static and splintered crackle mid-flow. The band stopped. Not dramatically, just enough for reality to intrude. Finn laughed. No irritation. No performance of frustration. He simply pulled the mic free, checked the connection like a mechanic diagnosing an old engine, clicked it back in, gave it a quick test with a grin, and started again.
Clean restart. No ego. No fuss.
From there, Birds softened the air entirely. The room seemed to sway in unison, like passengers on the bow of a ship moving through uneven water. The audience, by now, had fully arrived emotionally. This wasn’t a crowd waiting for highlights, it was a room inhabiting them.
One of the quiet fascinations of the night was watching the band themselves. Every member shifted roles with fluid ease, guitars swapped to bass, violin traded for keys, instruments passing hands like ideas rather than objects. For musicians in the room, it was less a concert than a masterclass in adaptability.
Between songs, Finn’s presence stayed understated.
“Thanks very much… thanks for coming… how you doing?”
What makes The Veils endure is not just their sound, but their refusal to stay in one emotional register. Few writers can pivot so naturally from fragile country-leaning balladry to muscular rock to near-avant abstraction without losing the thread. Yet somehow, these songs always find their way home. They don’t just play, they narrate. They breathe. They shift like film scenes cut by instinct rather than logic.
And then came the moment the room had been unknowingly waiting for.
Jesus for the Jugular.
It began slowly, almost cautiously, like something waking up in the dark. Then it opened out, wide, violent, unrestrained. Finn crouched over his pedalboard, twisting sound into new shapes, then rising into a half-stance as if pulled by the music itself. His guitar work turned feral, huge, distorted waves crashing through the venue like collapsing architecture.
The crowd erupted. Cheers. Whistles. That collective release that only happens when tension finally breaks in the right direction.
For a few minutes, Andrews didn’t look like he was performing. He looked inhabited. Fully inside the sound, not controlling it so much as surviving it. It was one of those rare live moments where exaggeration feels unnecessary because reality is already maximal.
The Veils have long been one of New Zealand’s most quietly formidable live exports, gothic, emotionally exposed, and unafraid of scale. This Auckland show may not have been packed to capacity, but that never mattered. Crowds measure entry. Not impact.
Because sometimes the most lasting gigs aren’t defined by how many people were there.
They’re defined by the silence between songs. The shared laugh after a technical failure. The sense, leaving the room, that something slightly unrepeatable just happened in front of you.
Tonight was one of those nights.
- Aurora
- High Hopes
- Lungs
- Are You Awake Tonight?
- Swimming With the Crocodiles
- Birds
- Not Yet
- Here Come the Dead
- The Dream of Life
- The Ladder
- New Day
- My Foolish Heart
- No Limit of Stars
- Low Lays the Devil
- Jesus for the Jugular
Encore:
- The Widening Dark
- Axolotl
Reviewer: Paul Marshall
Photography by Paul Marshall
WATCH THE LIVE VIDEO at Paul Was There -