Blisters, sunburn and tinnitus be damned, Wellington needs Homegrown Festival – or at least something to replace it.

The mood of the day at Homegrown was set early and forcefully: “local heroes” Dartz had a message for the afternoon early birds wasting no time in getting thrash punk through the ears and booze into the stomach. Pōneke’s favourite post-pub rock band came with the warning that it was “a dangerous day to be a cold one” – or, to be more realistic, a $12 lukewarm Steinlager.

After 18 years in the capital, Homegrown Festival’s final hurrah in Wellington before it moves to an as yet undisclosed location was steaming and pumping and yet just breezy enough to cool any heat-induced exhaustion. Fans had commented that the crowds packing out the waterfront seemed smaller than previous years – I wouldn’t know, because this was my first go at being a Homegrown punter.

And those first time shivers felt best shed at the Rock Stage, where Shihad would perform what was supposed to be their final ever show on Saturday night (they ended up selling out a surprise show at Meow Nui the next day), and die-hard fans were already lining up along the barricade to secure a front row spot, several hours early. Thankfully, they had the showmanship of Dartz frontman Daniel Vernon, waxing lyrical on stealing from the supermarket and killing your landlord, in front of graphics from the 1997 PlayStation smash hit Jonah Lomu Rugby, to kick the day off right.

After hearing tunes about Toyota Corollas, it was onto Corrella at Waitangi Park’s aptly named Park Stage, through the throngs moving down Ara Moana with a dripping chicken souvlaki picked up along the way. The reggae ensemble could have easily won “best opening of the day” with their entrance soundtracked by a snippet from the first reading of the Treaty principles bill – as Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performed her famous parliament haka on screen, the band did their own.

They breezed through ‘Churr Māori’, a Fugee-fied rendition of ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ and ‘Blue-Eyed Māori’, and even though the mate I came here with likened the sound to “Air New Zealand landing music”, I thought it made perfect “Wellington-on-a-good-day” music. Whenever you have a lull in your schedule, you should just go see someone, even if you’re unsure if it’s really your thing – what else are you at this $200 music festival for?

Back at the Rock Stage, Troy Kingi and the Cactus Handshake turned the waterfront into a dust bowl. Stuck underneath the sun without even a cloud for respite, you could’ve closed your eyes and let Kingi’s guitar drive you down the dirt tracks and mirages of the Mojave Desert. Open your eyes again, and the image of Kingi wrapped in a poncho might trick you into thinking you’ve landed at the feet of a shaman, here to make sure you survive this musical journal while spiritually intact. Then the guitar rips you apart again.

As the day progressed the number of bodies sporting Shihad shirts seemed to double, then triple, then quadruple, the only thing moving faster than the intoxication levels. If Jon Toogood was their God, I was about to finally realise a childhood dream of seeing mine: Nesian Mystik.

If you know, you know – the knowing being endless summers spent blasting their Elevator Musiq album along Lyall Bay, and wholeheartedly believing Nesian Mystik were bigger than Jesus. It kind of boggles the mind that Nesian Mystik being here for their first show since their 2011 farewell tour didn’t get as much hype as Shihad playing their final show.

You could’ve spotted the Poly’s from a mile away – we were all in front of the Park Stage, rocking the rude Ngāti dreads and the greenstone around our necks. They played all the hits – ‘Sun Goes Down’, ‘Dance Floor’, ‘Nesian 101’, ‘Mr Mista’, ‘For The People’ – while bodies moved with the beat and voices proved they hadn’t forgotten the Nesian styles. Even better, the band hinted there could be new music on the way; I publish these words in the hopes that that will make it come true.

Then, it was dinner (lort cha, courtesy of K&K Cambodian Food Truck) and a show (tunes, courtesy of The Beths) at the City Stage, where you could either dance on the grass or give your tired feet a rest on the steps surrounding Frank Kitts Park. You can’t go wrong with The Beths, who are consistently on form and whose lyrics prick the heart and feed the insecure ego no matter how many times you’ve heard them sung live – with nothing to replace Homegrown yet, you really could call them experts in a dying field.

Leave halfway through their set and round the corner to the Lagoon Stage, and divine timing would have delivered you to Aaradhna performing ‘Down Time’ as it did me. Aaradhna has one of those voices which can easily stand alone, but she let one special guest briefly upstage her: local legend the Wellington tree man, playing his famous saxophone. The sun fell fully behind the horizon as she saw her set off with ‘Forever Love’, breathing soul into bodies which were either intertwined or gurning solo.

An hour out from Shihad’s set, a slow moving line had formed from the entrance to the Rock Stage, outside the Brew Bar, back to Te Papa. It seemed the perfect time to get a McFlurry from across the road, then find someone else to watch. We caught the tail-end of Drax Project’s set performing ‘Catching Feelings’, which was surprisingly good – I say “surprisingly” because I’m still trying to seem too cool for ultra radio-friendly music, and watching frontman Shaan Singh jump around the stage, sing and play the saxophone can really change your mind about this band.

Ten minutes out from Shihad’s performance, the line had just about disappeared. So we packed ourselves in like sardines between the university breathers and old-school bogans and waited for it all to let rip. And it did: nearly 40 years of rocking, apparently pent up inside every geezer in attendance, poured out as Toogood thrashed his guitar and flames were sent into the air.

The waterfront had been swallowed up by the power of rock, with Toogood going back through the band’s early albums Killjoy and Churn, awakening the inner teenager locked away inside the Gen X-strong crowd. I only stayed for about 25 minutes, after remembering I’ve never really “got” Shihad’s music; but there’s still beauty in the fact that even at the supposed end of your career, people can still discover your music for the first time – sounds live on, even if you don’t.

Before the day had wound down, my friend turned to me and said: “I think we can say we’ve had a sufficiently good day”. It would’ve been faint praise coming from anyone else, but he’s one of those hard-to-please types who is prone to endless critique, and I knew what he was really trying to say.

It was the only bandage I needed for the blisters on my feet and the ringing in my ears – the reminder that all you can really hope for out of a festival experience is a sense of shared joy. It would be a shame for that joy, felt for years up and down this waterfront, to walk out the door along with Homegrown if another festival doesn’t come to replace it.

A decade ago today, the nation sat transfixed by a tray of red roses and a chiselled man named Arthur. 

I still remember where I was when I found out that The Bachelor NZ was coming. Duncan Greive was at the Three season launch and texting me live updates. As I searched for my car in Auckland’s St Lukes carpark, my phone pinged and there were three words, all caps: THE BACHELOR NZ. It felt like the world had shifted on its axis: reality television’s most glamorous search for love, coming to little old Aotearoa? How would we talk about our feelings? Which bloody Fred Dagg farmer could they squeeze into a Barkers suit? How could it ever work? 

Bringing a giant dating franchise like The Bachelor to our shores also meant a diversifying of our reality television portfolio. In the years prior we had mostly been glued to cooking and singing competitions, or brief forays into Kardashian and Jersey Shore-style observational formats with The Ridges and The GC (both of which, I’m sure we can all agree, went really well). The Bachelor NZ was a format which inherently required a new level of vulnerability on arrival: single people hopeful for love, willing to lay it all on the line, beach farts and all. 

Another crazy factoid for you is that The Bachelor NZ premiered just TWO DAYS after Natalia Kills and Willy Moon blew up X Factor NZ with their incomprehensible suit-based tirade against poor old Joe Irvine. Imagine both those universes existing not just at the same, but airing on the same channel?! No wonder we all had so much fun on Twitter back then. Desperate to return to that time when we still all watched TV and the reality TV → influencer pipeline was just laying its foundations, I dug up episode one of The Bachelor NZ to relive the glory days. 

We first meet Arthur Green (what in the Knights of Camelot) jogging down the beach, his feet laid as bare as his 26-year-old heart. “I do believe there is one right person there for anyone, and I’m hoping to find that person,” he broods from a nearby log. Next seen pacing around an office in a tight navy shirt, we learn that Arthur has set up his own paleo food business – get this – because he wanted to learn more about business. “We’re doing preorders at the moment, great for school lunches,” he says over the phone. David Seymour, that you? 

But when he’s not biffing paleo snacks at children, lifting kettle bells or getting out of pools in slow motion, Arthur admits there’s something missing in his life. He has a big loving family and a very muscular torso (which we see no less than three times in the opening sequence) but he’s still waiting for The One. “I do believe that there is one right person out there for everyone, so I’m hoping that I am about to find that person,” he beams. I’m not too proud to admit that I had full body chills knowing what was about to come for this wide-eyed biltong baron.

Matilda is the very first bachelorette we meet, engaging in that classic 2015 activity of gently placing rose petals on a cake. She’s a hardworking sales executive for a media company, but has become that girl that everybody has tried to set up on dates. Spontaneity and a sense of humour are important in her future partner, as is a love of food. “A lot of girls don’t really like to eat on the first date, but I’m all about it,” she laughs. “I often order the ribs and a lot of guys are put off by that – so that’s something he would need to be OK with.” 

It’s amazing in hindsight that we didn’t all tune out right then and there – a paleo peddler and a meat loving maiden? In the words of Dr Lavigne, can I make it any more obvious? Alas, there are many more fascinating women to meet, including accordion solo champion Danielle, worldly yoga instructor Chrystal (“I have had many international exotic boyfriends”) and thrillseeker Rosie. “If he doesn’t want to go on adventures in the Middle East, then I’ve got no time for it,” Rosie says of The Bachelor. “I would like to go out with a sniper, possibly.” 

Of course, the first woman out of the car and onto The Bachelor red carpet is the winner, Matilda. Arthur sighs a huge sigh of relief as she grins and toddles towards him in two-tone strappy heels. “My heart is just like brrrrr-” she says, beating her hand in front of her chest. “Likewise” smiles Arthur. I am welling up. She points at the red handkerchief tucked in his pocket and says “I like this thing.” Arthur quips back: “thanks, I picked it out myself.” The pair laugh really, really loudly, before hugging and promising a catch up inside. I am, truly, sobbing. 

“He seems really funny and nice and easy to talk to,” Matilda reflects in her interview. “That’s definitely someone I can see myself with in the future.” Arthur also seems smitten. ““My first impression of Matilda? I really like her. She seems really natural and relaxed and just completely open.” I have now become The Shape of Water. 

While Art and Matilda have a charming if not slightly awkward first meeting, there’s plenty more red carpet goofiness to come. “Your hair is so long,” Art says to Shivani. “Really? I just got it cut,” she responds. Danielle tells him about her dog Elmo who goes kayaking. “Go Elmo,” says Art. Bridget hands him a Little Creatures Pale Ale (2015!) and then does that classic “you’ve got something there” gag followed by a little boop on the nose (Art takes it slightly better than Christopher Luxon would nine years later). 

We must also, in the interests of anthropological analysis, discuss the 2015 fashion. Category is: pre-Trump, pre-pandemic, pre cost-of-living maximalism. I’m talking bleach blonde hair, sometimes with a pastel pink or lilac rinse, styled poker straight or in tight poodle curls. I’m talking deep side partings, smoky eyes from coast to coast, lashings of fake tan and the kind of chunky metal statement necklaces and earrings that, these days, most women would much rather melt down and sell in exchange for a block of tasty cheese. 

It all feels so novel and cute, light years away from the festering state of romance reality television within just a few short years. In 2015, there was no F-Boy Island, there were no conflict-filled Married at First Sight dinner parties, no cast members so evil that their presence would have to be exorcised in post-production. In 2015, there was just good old Mike Puru from The Edge, standing in front of 21 single women, explaining the significance and symbolism of the rose with the same level of detail and gravity as someone unravelling an ancient spell. 

There’s a politeness to proceedings that also feels alien today. The women fret endlessly all night about interrupting Art’s conversations, and comment endlessly on how awkward the whole thing is. “Arthur is like the gorgeous luscious honey and we are the bees all swarming to him,” says Hayley, briefly spreading misinformation about the relationship between honey and bees. The only person who doesn’t play ball is Chrystal, who says “give me that puppy”, takes a sip of Art’s espresso martini (2015!), and then ignores him all night. An instant legend born. 

Someone who is quite quick to interrupt Art is our Matilda, who plays 4D chess by bringing along champion chess player Natasha as her wingwoman. It pays off, and Art soon takes her for a gorgeous romantic walk across the… lawn. “What’s your main thing you look for in someone?” asks Matilda. “Someone who is completely themselves and can laugh at themselves: a dork,” says Art. “A dork,” she smiles, “awesome”. Matilda receives the very first rose (see Puru explanation as above) and, within moments, the dork is in the room with us. 

As they walk back towards the cocktail party together, Art clocks a hidden set of stairs all too late. “Watch your ste-UUEEEGH” he utters, tripping over himself dramatically. “Watch your step more like!” Matilda cackles. My eyes roll back in my head and I see a supercut of everything that is to come in the future for both them – the final rose, the wedding, the many babies – and for The Bachelor franchise – the coin flip, Zac and Erin, the double Bachelorette season, the guy from SOL3 MIO having a random hoon – in an instant. 

But back on the steps of the mansion, these two don’t know any of that yet. Art collapses into giggles. Matilda is giggling too, but I am giggling the most. He’s fallen for her, she’s fallen for him, and I’ve fallen for all of it, all over again.