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Trucks rumble past. Hammers bang in the distance. Fences are dragged and placed in position. On Monday morning, Western Springs was a construction site, and I should have been in hi-vis like everyone else. Campbell Smith had other ideas. “Look behind you,” he instructed. “Look at that.” He directed me through the gates and along the fence to the spot where, at the last Laneway festival, a giant chunk of the Outerfields was taken up by Watercare upgrades. “At Laneway it was fucking gravel … now, Watercare is gone, there’s a road, that’s all been laid in properly and then the grass further around is growing.” Smith is fizzing with delight. “It’s just … beautiful.”
The famed Big Day Out promoter, manager and venue operator was on a video call from Los Angeles where he’d tried to escape Auckland’s chilly winter. Instead, Smith ran into a sweltering “38 fucking degrees” American heat wave. I’d Facetimed him on a whim for a quick tour of his Western Springs Bowl project. Smith has run the inner-city venue since 2014, and work recently began on a $2.5 million upgrade. He couldn’t stop smiling about it. I’d barely walked through the front gates when Smith interrupted me. “Can you palpably feel the level of excitement I'm having about this venue?” he said. “Like, I'm fucking jumping around my room just looking at it.”
It’s no wonder. Smith and his partner Brent Eccles fought several major battles to get to this point, including staring down a rival concept from Auckland FC’s backers, a syndicate Smith called “the billionaires”. Finally, earlier this month, plans were revealed for an upgraded Te Wai Ōrea Western Springs Bowl. Funded by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, the four-month upgrade will add a permanent 24-metre stage, remodelled hospitality areas, 35 VIP boxes, space for food trucks, and more. Smith likens it to the Hollywood Bowl, the “North Star of this whole thing”. Already, this coming summer, the Foo Fighters are booked for January, and Laneway for February.
But, just a few minutes ago, confirmation came through that the Bowl’s first big test is Olivia Dean, the London singer-songwriter phenom who is upgrading her sold out Spark Arena show on October 17. That show is now moving to open the Western Springs Bowl. Insiders tell me demand for tickets is so high that it could become the biggest headlining show the 27-year-old has ever played – meaning it could top the 40,000 she drew to Dublin in June. When I checked secondary ticketing sites yesterday, TradeMe and Facebook Marketplace were filled not with sellers but with desperate buyers pleading for spare Olivia Dean tickets. In a summer stacked with stadium shows by Guns N’ Roses, Foo Fighters and Robbie Williams, Olivia Dean could play the biggest of them all.
That is a huge test for a newly upgraded venue where the paint will barely be dry. Smith bats away questions about whether it will be ready with a curt, “100%, man”. But he admits the “sweet spot” for his Bowl would be crowds between 10,000-30,000. That way, all the bars, toilets and hospitality areas can fit into the main stadium area. When numbers get beyond that, all those facilities will need to be pushed out of the stadium and into the surrounding areas. The maximum capacity, Smith admits, is 50,000, which puts the Bowl in direct competition with stadiums like Eden Park and Go Media. The Bowl’s big drawcard over those other places? A permanent stage, saving promoters a huge amount of money.
Ask Smith how he’s feeling and he’ll says he’s “pumped”. Then he’ll repeat a line he already gave The Spinoff. “I’ve been doing this for 100 years [and] this is the most excited I've ever been about anything I've ever done,” he says. That’s because Smith’s history with the venue dates back to when he was 18, jumping fences so he could get into the absolutely rammed 1983 David Bowie show. “People were four or five metres up pine trees, or they were on the top of the toilet blocks,” he says. “That was the early days of the industry. The capacity of a venue was when people stopped buying tickets.”
So Smith’s proud he gets to help keep the venue’s tradition as a concert venue intact. “You're up on the embankment, you look over the stage, you see the trees and the Western Springs lake … it’s in the middle of our city and it's green and it was just being neglected.” Smith stops. I’ve wandered near the Bowl’s GA floor zone and he’s just spotted something behind me. “Look how beautiful that grass is,” he says. Smith is beaming again. “It’s just a big piece of beautiful grass.”
Olivia Dean plays the Western Springs Bowl on October 17; the pre-sale is here.
NZ Herald journalist Joanna Wane was in a café recently when she heard something unusual – her name being used in the music playing over the speakers. She does a deep dive ($$) and finds AI music is being used by businesses to avoid paying artist royalties. “I have to survive first,” the owner of that café tells Wane. She cites an APRA report that suggests generative AI could wipe out up to 23% of revenue for music creators in Australia and New Zealand by 2028. Hideous.
Local artist Isla Noon recently found AI pillaged three of her own songs. She has some stern words for those who think AI is going to subsume the work made by real musicians. “As the internet drowns itself in AI fakes, ‘real’ will become rare, and thus all the more valuable and treasured to music fans,” she writes for the NZ Herald ($$). If you want more, I reviewed her excellent new album for Jack Tame.
For some reason, the NZ Herald decided now might be a good time to rate and review each of the music venues left standing in Auckland. “I’ve never claimed to be an event specialist or an audiophile, but I do go to a lot of gigs,” explains Hauraki producer James Pugsley. OK. He doesn’t explain why the Auckland Town Hall gets top marks, ranking it over and above The Powerstation. I have a big issue with that. Find his scorecard here.
Finally, Limp Bizkit will headline next year’s rock and metal festival Good Things across three Australian dates in December. Simple Plan, All American Rejects, Bad Religion and P.O.D are also on the bill. That comes as Laneway pulls out of Perth and Adelaide. “This isn't goodbye, just see you soon,” say organisers.
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