Pop CultureSeptember 17, 2021

It’s official: The AM Show has gone just as bonkers as Breakfast

Staff writer

How has Auckland’s long lockdown affected The AM Show? Tara Ward tuned in this morning to find out.

Two weeks ago, Magic Talk radio host Ryan Bridge was announced as the new host of Three’s The AM Show, following the departure of long time presenter Duncan Garner. While TVNZ1’s Breakfast spends this Covid-19 outbreak in a chaotic frenzy of dinosaur weather reports and TikTok dances, what would Ryan Bridge’s appointment mean for The AM Show? Did he have his dancing shoes on? Would he climb into a wacky costume to bring us news updates, or simply talk for 36 hours straight, just because he could?

No chance. The AM Show has upped the stakes. Ryan Bridge is Googling murder tips.

KERERU COUNT SO FAR: ONE. RYAN BRIDGE COUNT SO FAR: ALSO ONE

Don’t worry, it’s fine. The last thing you expect to see on breakfast TV is a discussion how to get away with murder, but that’s exactly how Friday’s episode of The AM Show began. It seems we’ve been Googling some strange things during lockdown, which prompted The AM Show’s new host to reveal he’d arrived at work that morning and Googled “how to kill someone” for research purposes. The third search result gave him 16 tips to do it without getting caught, and The AM Show was off and running.

“Don’t burn the car, put it in a lake,” Ryan advised the nation. “Acid will dissolve the body,” fellow host Mark Richardson suggested, while the ever-composed Amanda Gillies reckoned you should always take the body out to sea. Team work makes the dream work, and it seems the new AM Show crew is in sync in ways we could never have imagined.

Six o’clock in the morning often feels like death, but despite being in their fifth week of lockdown, the AM Show presenters gave no signs of level four fatigue. Amanda welcomed us to the studio with a cheery wave, and even Mark was chipper and bright, grinning like he’d never grinned before. Everyone seemed relaxed, the banter upbeat. Things had changed, and Ryan Bridge began by announcing the most important shift of all: he had new cue cards.

They were huge, they were heavy, and Mark reckoned The Block NZ could build a house with them. The cards were the first story in a big news day, followed by the discovery of a new penguin species that existed 27 million years ago, almost the same amount of time that poor old Auckland has been in level four. Fossils show the penguin stood 1.4 metres high – “a big chook” said expert Dave Matthews – and it made Mark think.

“Why in those days was everything so big?” he wondered, concluding that tall people will die out long before short people. Here’s my viewer feedback: maybe short people know all about Mark’s “acid will dissolve the body” theory, or maybe the dinosaurs just drove the giant penguin’s car into a lake. Breakfast television always makes my brain spin, but what’s the weather doing? Showers in Dunedin, sunny in Greymouth, Napier a high of 13.

Things quickly became more shocking. After news that National MP Maureen Pugh has been struck by lightning three times, the show’s daily poll asked how many viewers had also been smited by a thunderbolt. At 7am, 94% of viewers confirmed they had not, and Ryan didn’t believe the other 6%. “I’ve never been struck by lightning,” viewer Paul emailed, “but I did stick a fork into an electric socket, so I know what it feels like.”

Amid the chooks and the shocks, The AM Show chewed over important news issues, like the Aukus treaty and Covid-19 vaccination rates, and an interview with MPs David Parker and Simon Bridges saw Ryan ask some serious questions. It was Bridge on Bridges, with the AM Show host saying several times that Bridges will be National’s next leader. “Is Judith Collins safe?” Ryan asked. A slick-haired Bridges said she was, but Ryan wasn’t convinced. “He’s looking handsome with his hair, but as soon as he cuts his hair, it’s all on,” he reckoned. That’s science for you, just ask the big penguins.

RYAN BRIDGE, DAVID PARKER AND SIMON WITH THE GOOD HAIR

The show cruised through the morning in an easy, breezy fashion, interviewing a teacher who created te reo phrases for jujitsu moves, and bird advocates promoting the national kererū count. A Google executive revealed what New Zealanders searched for in lockdown, including “DIY piano” and something called “Ruby Chicken”. This was becoming a show with more questions than answers. “What kind of noise would you make if you were hit by lightning, Mark?” Ryan asked, making some guttural, groaning noises of his own. Just your standard breakfast news show, mates, nothing more to see here.

At nine o’clock, the final poll results were announced. Only 8% of viewers claimed to have been struck by lightning, and Mark wasn’t impressed at the low voter turnout. “Those who care about it probably aren’t with us,” he said sadly, no doubt thinking of all those tall people and big penguins who would never get to see this new era of The AM Show. Ryan had read all his cue cards, Amanda waved us out like she waved us in, and a camera operator twerked us goodbye. It was a bonkers ending to a bonkers day, proving again that at its most chaotic and unpredictable, breakfast television is to die for.

The AM Show screens every weekday morning on Three and live on ThreeNow.

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Elizabeth Stokes performs with The Beths at the Auckland Town Hall in 2020. Photo: Si Moore

Pop CultureSeptember 17, 2021

How The Beths made lockdown movie magic

Chris Schulz

Guest writer

Elizabeth Stokes performs with The Beths at the Auckland Town Hall in 2020. Photo: Si Moore

No one can go to a big gig right now, but a 2020 concert by The Beths has become the lockdown movie experience the country needs. How’d that happen?

It was designed to be a brilliant night. After 12 shows around the country, The Beths were in some of the best form of their lives. To close out their nationwide tour, the Auckland-based indie-rock quartet had packed Auckland’s Town Hall for their biggest headline performance yet. Already postponed by Covid-19 restrictions, it was destined to become a cathartic concert experience for 2000 fans to let their hair down after two lengthy lockdowns.

Yet nerves were high. Auckland’s two major lockdowns – in March, and again in August – were still on band members’ minds as they walked onto the venue’s imposing stage on November 6. “Halfway through the show you could get a message: ‘You need to shut down right now,'” says Elizabeth Stokes, the band’s front woman. Concerns about quickfire alert level changes were real, yet the show was a very big deal. Much was riding on it, with extra cameras and microphones rigged up around the venue to help capture The Beths’ performance in all its glory.

For two days, the band – including lead guitarist and producer Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair and drummer Tristan Deck – had painted paper mache birds to hang around the stage, giving the Town Hall a park-like vibe. They needed to fly. “If I don’t play a good show, it’s all for nothing,” says Stokes. “You’ve put it on yourself. You are the host. You’ve invited everyone there. The pressure’s on to provide a good time and make it worth the ticket price.”

Spoiler alert: the show was incredible. The Beths ripped through songs from their electric debut Future Me Hates Me, as well as last year’s beloved follow-up, Jump Rope Gazers. Indie-rock anthems ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’ and ‘Dying to Believe’ rang around the venue, making the front rows bounce throughout the show. After a year of lockdowns, closed borders and concert cancellations, fans were ecstatic at experiencing a big gig again.

“That was a very easy show to have fun at,” says Pearce, Stokes’ partner and The Beths’ lead guitarist and producer who can be seen grinning as he rips through his riffs throughout the gig. “It was euphoric,” agrees Stokes, who seemed similarly ecstatic about being on stage. “It felt like everyone in the room was there with the intention of having a nice time.”

As the final notes of ‘River Run: Lvl 1’ rang around the venue, Stokes had a moment of her own. Despite the show being among the best The Beths had played, she broke down. Tears filled her eyes. It was catharsis, a release. “We played the last note of the last song, I took a deep breath and looked up and started crying,” she says. That feeling that washed over her? It was relief, and it was overwhelming. “It’s done,” she says. “We did it.”

Every single second of The Beths’ performance that night was captured on camera. Less than a year later, it’s been turned into a movie experience and accompanying live album. Called Auckland, New Zealand, 2020, it’s a snapshot of a night that, thanks to everything that’s happened since, feels like a lifetime ago. “Yeah, it does,” agrees Pearce. “Obviously it felt pretty special when we did it in the first place (but) it turns out to feel quite significant again.”

That’s because Auckland’s back in level four lockdown, the rest of the country in level two. Now into week five, Pearce and Stokes are on a Zoom call while sitting side-by-side in their Avondale home. Sport is keeping them sane. They’re bingeing Formula 1 races and competing in hardcore table tennis battles against their flatmates. When I mention the Black Caps’ upcoming tour of Pakistan, Pearce excitedly looks up a TV schedule. “Those T20s didn’t go so good,” quips Stokes. “We’re becoming quite a sporty band eh,” nods Pearce.

It’s the ultimate irony that a cathartic post-lockdown concert experience has been turned into a magical mid-lockdown movie event. No concerts are being held in Auckland, and the rest of the country is limited to indoor gatherings of just 50. Grab a few beers, put this up on a big screen, crank up your stereo and you might forget that major concerts can’t be held right now. Heck, turn the lights off and it might even feel like you’re at the show. It wasn’t planned this way. “None of the way this has transpired was orchestrated,” says Pearce.

Yes, The Beths have made a concert film, but their movie is also jammed full of delightful snippets of tour life: grabbing chips at a petrol station, meeting a cheeky kea, teaching opening act Pickle Darling how to open one beer bottle using another. It’s come out way better than they’d hoped, so good that, post-lockdown, it might get a chance to be seen on a big screen. If that happens, it will also mark a moment in time: many concert-goers can be seen wearing masks.

Along with lockdown concerns, The Beths remember their Town Hall show as a huge step up. Previously, their biggest headlining concert was at The Powerstation, and that gig was just a few months beforehand. That quickfire trajectory is remarkable. “The Town Hall was a bit of a punt for us,” admits Pearce. “You have your ‘Where do we want to be in 12 months?’ ideas in your head. (We thought) it would be nice to be able to play a show that big.” It was supposed to happen earlier, but lockdowns forced a delay. “It was actually quite a stressful time and it was a huge relief when it finally did happen,” says Pearce.

Another irony: right now, The Beths have found themselves in almost exactly the same situation. Five sold out shows planned at Whammy Bar for the end of September and beginning of October are being delayed by Auckland’s current lockdown. They’re also currently unable to go to their studio on Auckland’s K’ Rd studio to continue work on their third album. Yes, they’re halfway through a new record, just a year after Jump Rope Gazers was released. “We’re ticking away at that, from home,” says Stokes. “What else can you do?”

Stream The Beths’ Auckland, New Zealand, 2020 here (from 4pm today).