Tigilau Ness and Jubilation choir members, rehearsing for their concert last weekend at the Western Springs Garden Community Hall. (Photo: Jubilation / Facebook)
Denis O’Reilly, a visitor from Hawke’s Bay, spends the weekend in Auckland.
In the halcyon days of Metro magazine and its late founder and editor Warwick Roger, back when Ponsonby Road’s SPQR was pumping and the magazine’s Felicity Ferret column ruled the coffee tables, the deprecatory description for those of us who live in the provinces was “a visitor from Hawke’s Bay.”
Well, last weekend, my lady Taape Tareha and I were indeed visitors from Hawke’s Bay, enjoying the much advertised attractions of the Queen City. Unlike most visitors to the city, we weren’t there for the All Blacks match against Argentina, but rather for an event at the Western Springs Garden Community Hall. This was a concert featuring the Jubilation Choir and Tigilau Ness.
Jubilation is an a cappella gospel choir, featuring the mellifluous voices of divas such as Jackie Clarke and Jennifer Ward-Lealand. Missing were the deep notes of my departed friend, basso-profundo Nick Rosenberg, and the gravelly, emphysema-like rasp of the choir’s co-founder, the late Rick Bryant. Both men undoubtedly now members of the heavenly chorale.
Two voices we had come to enjoy were those of choir member Ross France and the choir guest Tigilau Ness, both men being longtime friends and comrades in pursuit of a just and inclusive Aotearoa. Ross is an irrepressible advocate for the rights of the children he represents in court. Tigi is regarded as the grandfather of reggae in Aotearoa.
Neither men would be recognised as household names, but, crikey, mention their sons and everyone perks up. Ross’s son is mixed martial arts exponent Kai Kara-France, and Tigi’s son is lyricist Che Fu (his full name is Che Kuo Eruera Ness).
The concert was on Sunday evening. Earlier in the day, Kai Kara-France was fighting in a flyweight UFC match in Perth, in a return to the octagon after a period of layoff. I wanted to watch the fight and wandered down to a waterfront bar at the Viaduct Harbour.
The bar was packed with the young and brown, friendly, and in good spirits. Mad Dan Hooker literally kicked the day off for the City Kickboxing team, winning a gruelling contest. Kai Kara-France (Waikato, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Ātiawa) came out with his game face on, channelling the god of war Tumatauenga, and ruthlessly dispatched his opponent, Steve Erceg.
When asked by commentators “How?”, he simply said: “It’s because I’m Māori, bro!” In that simple statement, he validated and encouraged every young brown Aucklander in that bar to recognise their ancestry and to struggle to be their best.
Ross didn’t watch his boy in the fight. He was at choir practice. What a juxtaposition.
At the appointed hour, Taape and I joined a bevy of others in the sold-out community hall and had our spirits massaged and lifted by the Jubilation Choir.
Then, in the second half of the show, we were taken to another level of consciousness by Tigilau’s waiata. Jubilation is contemplating another concert. If you see it advertised, go!
Back at the hotel, I picked up a copy of the Weekend Herald and read about a celebrated Auckland court case: the murder trial of eye surgeon Phillip Polkinghorne, who’s accused of strangling his wife in their Remuera home and then staging it to look like a suicide.
Very many trials are concerned with acts of the desperate poor, whereas this was about the acts of “the desperate rich”. “White mischief in the white-walled, multi-chimneyed homes of white-collar professionals, who are pretty much all white,” as Steve Braunias wrote.
Well, a tale of two cities, nei?
Never mind Auckland’s ostentatious wealth. Provincial visitor from Hawke’s Bay, I may be, but I prefer the company of the honest society of the Auckland downtown’s brown whānau, the angelic-voiced blessings of the Jubilation Choir, and the conscious lyrics of Tigilau Ness.
Denis O’Reilly lives at Waiohiki in Hawke’s Bay where he chairs the Waiohiki Community Charitable Trust. He is a writer, social activist and consultant.
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As a Pākehā living in Aotearoa, I feel so uplifted by reading Denis O’Reilly’s writings. May 19 and August 24. E tū, Aotearoa!