27 October 2006 at Capitol Bar was a Halloween spectacular with one of the finest local line-ups of the year. Not So Experimental opened, and the bold decision to lead with them paid off immediately — costumed bodies were thrown around the dance floor from the first song. Capitol’s indoor/outdoor layout meant the night was a constant circuit: stage to courtyard, catching acts and catching up with people in between.
Get Set Play! — Tiger Tones‘ Mark on keys and vocals, Nick Harte on drums — sent the crowd into a frenzy with the same kind of cool electro-dance-indie-pop the Tones had honed so well. Goodbye Galaxy struggled with a faulty mic and odd sound, turning in a performance that was more trippy than intended. Then came Super-Force: Golden Axe‘s Chris Cudby in a handmade mirror-ball helmet, playing gritty keyboard numbers drenched in digital noise and distorted vocals.
Frase+Bri brought the southern flavour, showing off to their Christchurch audience how the far duo had progressed — Bri’s singing had the crowd hollering. Disasteradio!‘s Luke Rowell, then writing soundtracks and scoring adverts, delivered a live performance as fun and fizzing as ever — though by that point in the night, well past midnight, even the danciest in the room were starting to feel it. The evening wound down to DJ Stevie Kaye spinning Dana Dane’s old-school hip-hop classic Nightmare — a fitting horror-show finale.
