Modern Maori Quartet – Auckland Town Hall

What a privilege it was to enjoy the Modern Maori Quartet at the Auckland Town Hall as part of the Auckland International Cabaret Season. With a mix of self-deprecating humour, amazing vocal harmonies and plenty of audience participation, this was a show cabaret show like no other I’d seen.

The show begins with just three of the eponymous quartet stepping onto the stage. These three, in natty black suits and slim red ties (+ one guitar – the solo instrument accompanying the voices throughout most of the show) immediately engage the crowd with a witty repartee. It’s clear that these guys are a bunch of mates, as well as a musical group. With some poking fun at Maori cultural stereotypes and a good dose of giggles, the audience is soon eating out of their collective palms. Soon, the final quarter of the quartet arrives through the back of the concert chamber, with the banter soon bouncing around the four walls.

The music included such singalong classics as “Haere Mai, Everything is Kapai” sung in beautiful four-part harmony, to a rendition of “Pokarekare Ana” that has its second verse hijacked into a hilarious parody. This is entertainment gold.

Throughout the next hour we are treated to a walk down memory lane with classroom staples like the alphabet song in Maori (complete with hand gestures that soon the audience is joining in with) and a long set designed to take the audience inside a typical Maori party (not the political one, as the boys made sure to point out). This was a great medley of nostalgic songs sung in Te Reo, punctuated by golden oldies from Buddy Holly and the like. They finished with the most beautiful cliché possible, a rousing rendition of “Ten Guitars”.

Perhaps the cleverest trick the boys brought to the show, and there’s plenty to choose from, was their penultimate song. No spoilers but they introduced it as an original inspired by something they’d seen on TV and thought was “very, very Maori – people killing each other at weddings and family members sleeping together.”

This talented quartet deserved every bit of applause from their standing ovation. Absolute gold.

You can see the guys again 8 June at the Concert Chamber – Auckland Town Hall.

Reviewed by Natalie Ridler

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