Close Encounters

Originally published in the NZ Listener in November 2010.

ROCK MUSICIANS AND photographers are natural-born partners: show-offs need an audience, and a Nikon lens loves a show-off. For some photographers, like Auckland’s Bruce Jarvis, the scent of the hunt has been a life-long quest. Shooting first as fans, many become professionals, and Jarvis’s tenacity at capturing live shows secured him access that today’s photographers can only envy.

Jarvis’s work is the backbone of a large-format book Live: Gigs that Rocked New Zealand, that portrays the flamboyant visitors in our midst. From the first international rock’n’roll tour – Johnny Cash and Gene Vincent, in 1959 – to Lady Gaga’s aerobic fashion-show earlier this year, the performers are freeze-framed at the peak of their careers. Some of the images – such as Jarvis’s portraits of a satanic Frank Zappa, an exultant Bob Marley – belong in the rock photo hall of fame. But even more than the performers, it is the settings that resonate. In the background, a vanished New Zealand hovers like a vaguely remembered backdrop.

At the Beatles’ civic reception outside Auckland’s Town Hall in 1964 – how the councillors criticised Mayor Robbie for his generosity – one can glimpse the area now lost to Aotea Square. Out of sight are the 7000 fans who wagged school that morning. Instead, we spot the Market Hotel, one of many Edwardian corner pubs that are long since gone like the Vauxhall Velox seen cruising an almost empty street. Twenty years later, in the same area, a panoramic shot by Bryan Staff shows DD Smash’s drummer Peter Warren surveying a calm, peaceful crowd of thousands. The “Thank God It’s Friday” celebration to welcome the summer of 1984 will soon be renamed the Aotea Square riot.

The surprises often come from the unsung heroes who turn emotion into emulsion: the jobbing photographers rostered on for the day by a newspaper’s picture editor. At the Turnbull Library, saved from destruction, are gems from the files of deceased papers such as the Evening Post. These go beyond the requisite Maori welcome parties, the gimmick poses and the bland equivalents of rock stars kissing babies. Among the treasure are action shots of the Who, smashing their equipment on the Wellington’s Town Hall stage in 1968. Somehow, the Pretty Things’ out-of-control drummer Viv Prince found time to sit for a formal portrait during the band’s notorious tour in 1965. He wears a woman’s leopard-skin hat, the coolest of rimless shades, chain bracelets of the style favoured by bodgies – and across his knuckles, a sticking plaster that testifies to his many scrapes while here.

As glamorous as some of the stars appear – the Temptations, stepping out in the 1970s’ finest flared suits; Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry, elegant in herringbone tweed – it is the species Kiwi Rock Fan that makes these photos special. Invading the Rolling Stones’ stage in 1966 is an ecstatic fan, resplendent in homemade polka-dot mini skirt. Almost as gleeful are the navy-blue helmeted constables coming to Mick Jagger’s rescue.

Parked ostentatiously before the muslin-clad crowd waiting for Rod Stewart at Western Springs stadium in 1977 is a Ford Falcon emblazoned with Radio Hauraki’s logo. Beside it mooches a deejay in denim flares and manky long hair, while staff members or girlfriends attempt cool in satin jackets and bad posture. Their attitude: we are closer to the action than you.

The images also evoke the months of excitement that once came with the news that an overseas act was about to play “the Springs”. Long before the mammoth 1980s shows by David Bowie and ZZ Top, the Auckland speedway amphitheatre had hosted Little Richard, Elton John and Neil Diamond. For the first time we can see the Rolling Stones’ 1973 show in colour, thanks to a roll of film shot by Lloyd Godman. He didn’t need a flash – they played on a sunny afternoon – and it turns out that Jagger’s diamond-studded, low-cut, satin jumpsuit was turquoise.

Presented en masse, many of these shots have a “They walked this Earth” quality. They also answer the perennial question asked of visitors as they step off the plane: how do you find New Zealand? (It was apparently a wide-eyed Australian reporter who enquired “How many of you are there in your quartet, Mr Brubeck?”).

The Beatles look jubilant, although reports later came back that they described New Zealand as being like Britain, before the war. The Rolling Stones – specifically, Keith Richards – said of Invercargill it was “the arsehole of the World”. We remember these jibes, and almost more than the concerts we remember the interaction that these troubadours – grizzly or courteous – have with the locals.

Contrary to their surly reputation, in 1966 the Rolling Stones look cheerful, with their shirts off, enjoying the sun beside their Wellington motel swimming pool. The Guess Who play an après-gig jam at Tommy Adderley’s speakeasy Grandpa’s (sadly, no one was there to record the night in 1973 that Keith Richards turned up with a guitar and sundry other Rolling Stones).

Afterwards, when the litter has been cleared from the town halls and the paddocks that once hosted festivals, the anecdotes turn into urban legends. The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival of 1973 is now remembered more for Corban Simpson’s nude performance than for headliners Black Sabbath headlining or the early appearance by Split Ends. Two years later, live on stage at the Te Rapa Racecourse, is Slade’s gormless Dave Hill; he is resplendent in an early mullet, a glitter-pasted forehead, a silver frock coat and platform boots. The promoter of this 1975 one-day festival – the cape-wearing Byron de Lacey – sounds almost mythological.

An Auckland school teacher friend says that every year – for nearly four decades – some 15-year-old aspiring guitar heroes in his class ask him the same question. “Sir, have you heard the Led Zeppelin song Stairway to Heaven?” Yes, he replies. “In fact, I heard them play it live at Western Springs in 1972 – before many of us had heard it on record.”

“Really?” they gasp. “Led Zeppelin played ... here?”

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The Viv Prince shot is from the Alexander Turnbull Library’s collection of Evening Post negatives. The reference number is EP/1965/3179.