Gig Review: Supergroove @ The Opera House, Wellington – 11/04/2025

Waaaay back in the early 1990’s I was a snotty nosed lil’ groover, pogo-ing about in the mosh pit in Vic Uni’s Hunter Lounge, hiked up on flat beer and youthful exuberance. All around me, my peers were the same. We were all snotty nosed lil’ groovers back then. On the stage, a group of lads that probably would have failed the age test to even get into the bar in the first place. Also, snotty lil’ groovers. But, man, what talent and charisma!

With a pumping horn section, wickedly funky beats, massive guitar shreds and a huge attitude Supergroove always lived up to their audacious name. They were the deal! And the best part of any orientation gig. The best pub band. The best underage frat party the best hands down. They rocked! End of!

Listening back now, I still have a sense of FOMO for those gigs. It was the time of American Pie, forest raves and youth-party culture. And they brought the audible yard glass to any back yard congregation and skulled it, to boot! With untapped energy they were a high octane concoction James Brown meets Rage Against The Machine meets BB King.

Band members were still high school students when they started getting noticed. This was a pre-social media age. Yet their music still went viral, initially under the radar. Their fans were kids, too. But they were tribal and loyal. I was definitely one. Music at the times was swamped by rock, grunge and 70’s MOR. Supergroove was a breath of fresh air to the ears and we keen to be part of their oxygen. We were swapping tapes and playing them on Student stations even whilst the big commercial stations were snubbing them and refusing to give them airtime. With an abundance of energy Supergroove raised the proverbial finger to those stations by booking up more and more shows and shows and connecting directly with their audiences.

And that really paid off in spades. They had a string of hits and a massive debut album, Traction (1994). Then a cassette only EP Tractor (1994), a mix-up compile called Great Mixes (1996), a follow up album Backspacer (1996) and a retrospective Postage (2003).

The others sold well, but it was Traction that truly went gangbusters dominating the charts for over a month, much to the chagrin of those previously doubtful radio programmers, and eventually selling over 70,000 plus units. All thanks to hits like Sitting Inside My Head, Scorpio Girls and You Gotta Know. It went on to win Best Album at 1995’s New Zealand Music Awards. The group was inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in 2014.

The band was originally known as The Low Down Dirty Blues Band featuring mates at Selwyn College and associates – Tim Stewart and Nick Atkinson, Ned Ngatae, Che Ness (Che Fu), Paul Russell (replaced by Tim Stewart) and Joe Fisher (now Joe Lonie). Many are still in the band today.

Supergroove was lightening in a bottle, touring everywhere, recording and then self-exploding 3 years later. The band was just brimming with talent and that might have been their own nemesis. Too much of a good thing, too many great ideas. Various disagreements, side projects and general creative adventures eventually took them off on various tangents.

But it also launched some pretty incredible careers. Karl Steven went on to be a renown composers, toured for The Drab Doo Riffs, Heart Attack Alley, Queen Neptune, received the APRA award (2013) for film and television, curated music events at the Auckland Memorial Museum, penned many celebrated soundtrack scores including the TV Series Black Hands along with the film The Bad Seed amongst many others.

Guitarist Ben Sciascia put his name on a diverse range of music projects such as the movies Heaven (1998), What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted (1999) and the mega-popular TV show New Zealand Idol (2004). With another band member, Tim Stewart, he also formed Svelte.

Of course, Che Fu needs no introduction. His solo career gave us two of the most incredible Hip Hop albums ever – 1998’s 2 B Pacific and the iconic disc The Navigator (2003), which nabbed him Best Male Vocalist for the single Misty Frequencies. Former drummer Paul Russell was recruited into Che’s band, The Kratez.

Nick Atkinson pops up on the radar in many forms, blowing his sax and clarinet in numerous bands, including (and this is only a sample) jazz trio Foghorn, contributions to SJD’s albums, One Million Dollars, HMX and Taite Prize finalists Hopetoun Brown with fellow Supergroover Tim Stewart. He can be seen on stages with Tami Neilson, Sir Dave Dobbyn and Don McGlashan, too.

Stewart keeps himself busy on plenty of side projects and teaches music at High Schools around Tamaki Makaurau. While Drummer Ian Jones pops up in various guises, too, having played with Alex Lloyd and Jenny Morris. He’s also taught piano, drums and music theory for over 25 years.

Since their split in 1997, Supergroove have only performed together a handful of times. I saw them support Crowded House during their Intriguer album tour around 2010.

So, tonight’s ‘The Phenomenon Tour’ show, the fourth fairly extensive set of dates across the motu, including two more in the Capital over the weekend, was a rare chance to relive the magic. But it was clear that all that experience I’ve highlighted above came to the fore tonight with a band that reunited Supergroove’s 1995 lineup: saxophonist Nick Atkinson, vocalists Karl Steven and Che Fu, drummer Ian Jones, bassist Joe Lonie, guitarist Ben Sciascia and trumpeter Tim Stewart. Plus, and this is the kicker, special guests Troy Kingi, Rubi Du, and King Kapisi who all played songs from their catalogues interwoven between the big Supergroove classics.

As I walked into the Opera House to find my seat, King Kapisi was warming up the crowd with some smooth tracks and playful banter: “Shout out if you’re from Rongotai! I’m from Welly…Yo! Who’s from the Hutt?” The man’s a tall unit, made even more imposing behind the decks in his portable DJ Booth illuminated by an apron of red lights which reminded me of the domes on the front of a Dalek. It felt a little bit weird sitting down while the compere was encouraging me to get on up and wave my hands like I didn’t care in time to samples from Inner City and M.A.R.R.S.

On the dot of eight Troy Kingi came out to play a solo version of 9 Million Years before the lads were on proper. “Remember the first time we were here? It was the school orchestra trip. I was the triangle player,” Karl Steven quipped. The others scoff. “Hey, the triangle is technically difficult to play!”

Ah, yes. The banter is still part of the Supergroove shtick along with mega-tight funk and some snippets of intense hard rock. We got all of that. Once the gates were open, Steven explodes onto the stage, throwing shapes and poses, pulling faces, jumping about like a demented weta high on sugar and food colouring. Don’t try that at home, kids.

Che Fu is more chill, but clearly over his stage shyness, for now at least, and enjoying the warmth of this sold out audience who are singing back all the lyrics to early pleasers like Your White Shirt and You Gotta Know.

King Kapisi put me into a serious nostalgia mood when he and Che Fu performed Screems From Da Old Plantation and we all swayed in time and chanted the chorus back to him.

Acknowledging the full house, Steven looks up and jokes that Welly is a “Town of restaurants”. “You have one for every day of the week. No wonder the dishes aren’t done in the kitchen. You’re out munching.” Then he looks up to the ‘Gods’ and muses, “This room is like a Big Mac – (the stalls) are the bun, (the balcony) the meat and cheese and that weird thousand island dressing and (the gallery) is the top bun.” Chow down folks. What goes on in his mind?!

On the album Traction, the number For Whatever Reason is almost a demo, just Che Fu and a guitar. Live, it’s a bigger more bombastic effort. But we love it all the same, singing back every lyric as if they are personal, memories of our own awkward youthful romantic encounters.

Then the lights dim for Steven, Atkinson and Stewart, three OGs, to reminisce about learning the blues after school in music class. They do a bit of a jam, with Steven on harmonica and the other two on the brass. Kingi returns with Che Fu for another jam. This time it’s their super bluesy Sister Sister (from the Postage album) featuring Steven’s harp wailing like a heartbroken kitten left out in the rain too long.
Auckland rapper Rubi Du makes her first appearance.

Best known for her reggae and dancehall, Rubi Du veers towards her latest work, which is more sparse and electronically driven. Tonight, she’ll do two tracks – Fireball and Bigga Tingz. The latter opens the second half of the show, with Rubi standing in a half circle of synths and pads played by the band (doing their best Kraftwerk impressions) and lit by stark swathes of cool white light. A very effective image.

When they perform Don’t Look Down the place explodes into a huge fireball of energy, all on our feet and ready to break the glass and flip the alarm switch! Steven is thrashing about so violently he nearly destroys his mic stand multiple times and needs the help of the front row to collect up the debris and put it back together. “They gave me a gnarly mic stand. It was Jacob wrestling the angel.” The mic stand lost.

Che Fu soothes us once again with Misty Frequencies before a short interval, when Kingi Kapisi’s booth is reeled out. When I return, he’s got a man from The Hutt (always from there) up on the stage doing a sexy dance to Prince. Shudder! That’s someone’s dad!

After Rubi Du’s Bigger Tings, Che Fu gets busy on the decks, reinventing the blips from 80’s spacies machines into a very cool intro for the disturbing funk of Bugs & Critters. The number has the propensity to wander off into a bit of a geek jam, as it does. But Sciascia’s 70’s styled guitar solo is simply sublime and one of many highlights tonight. Jimmy Paige’s got nothing on this guy!

I should also mention Joe Lonie’s super funky bass playing and his deep grooves for the heavier tracks, which set up the mega-slick rhythms from Ian Jones’ drum kit. Oh, I want even a drop of his talent in that department! His drumming is incredibly tight!

By now Steven, in his tiny specs, black shirt, with gangly arms and legs, is flailing about like a demented stock trader during a Wall Street bull rush. Che Fu and King Kapisi lead on Chains and wind into the coil-spring intensity of Supergroove’s You Freak Me.

Troy Kingi and the band do a blistering version of his song Ride The Rhino. Definitely another highlight. Kingi has said he was a huge fan of Queens of The Stone Age. Live this song totally belongs to that cannon. It’s next level amazing! After a rap track with King Kaipisi and Che Fu we get a full noise version of Sitting Inside My Head, complete with blazing horn section. Naturally, there’s an ovation from the whole room.

The encores are as good as the gig, bringing Che Fu’s Fade Away, Next Time I See You and, of course the hot mess of Scorpio Girls which totally burns the house down.

Throughout the band are high energy. Steven laughs that it’s getting harder these days to be his “15 year old self”. But he’ll still be doing this at the retirement village, with a quick round of Soul Time (which they also do tonight) before his afternoon nap. If that’s the case, then I definitely want to be in his care facility! Even if they over boil cabbage for the Sunday Pork roast.

Many of Supergroove’s songs were written by snotty groovers back when they were over-ambitious teens. That arrogance and determination sure paid off. They were their best selves as Supergroove back then. And, although there’s no such thing as Peter Pan, we never wanted them to grow up. Ah, we all must. Still, I’m hoping they’ll felt that love in this room tonight and they keep coming back, re-uniting and playing more of these gigs. Going by tonight’s incredible efforts, it’ll be worth the price of admission!

Photo Credit: Stella Gardiner
Supergroove (and special guests) gallery