Liv Sisson reviews the latest instalment of the Christchurch music festival with a growing reputation as one of the best in the country.
There were plenty of memorable outfits at Electric Avenue, but one stuck out for me. On day two I saw a guy, maybe mid-50s, dancing hard while wearing a black T-shirt, khaki shorts and sneakers. It was actually an official Electric Ave T-shirt with the logo on the front, the lineup on the back and the sleeves cut off.
Basically this guy had gone to the merch tent on day one, surveyed all the cool artist merch and chosen the festival T-shirt above all else. He’d then gone home, cut the sleeves to his liking and worn it for day two.
Edge case, I thought, until someone in my group bought the same shirt and put it on immediately. People were so fizzed with the festival they wanted to rep it, wear it, be it. This little glimmer, to me at least, captures what made Electric Avenue 2025 so special: attendees, especially Cantabrians, can see themselves in this event, and they’re proud of it.
This year was Electric Ave’s 10th anniversary, my fifth time in attendance, and the first time it’s run over two days. Everyone I’ve talked to loved it. Every review has been glowing. Even the police were “pleased” with it. But what made it so great? For starters, lofty aspirations with adequate resource.
I saw evidence of this as soon as I arrived. Check-in was super smooth. Once you were wristbanded there was a final layer of staff sweeping you forward, telling you nicely to step off and continue into the festival to prevent congestion.
As RNZ reported, there were over 35,000 attendees on each of the two days. The event cost $12 million to put on. There were 600 portaloos, five kilometres of temporary fencing, five stages and over 60 performers from around the world. At least two festivalgoers travelled all the way from the UK to be there.
While international attendees would’ve been a small group, this festival truly felt like a Coachella, a Bonnaroo, maybe even a Tomorrowland. The kind of thing you’d travel for, save for, plan for months with your mates for. When the on-stage screens would cut to a reverse view, showing the crowd themselves, I was floored by every dancing sea I saw.
Returning artists seemed genuinely happy to be back in Hagley Park. On day one Tash Sultana played a ripper afternoon set. “Do you remember the last time I was here, when the council cut my set?” they said with a cheeky grin, “That’s not going to happen today.” I was there for that shortened set and Tash brought the same energy to this one, jumping around, playing every instrument possible and wowing us with powerful saxophone sections. “You’ve gotta lay off the spots if you’re going to play the sax like that,” they joked.
My first loo break was as illuminating as the check-in. The organisers have obviously studied other events, maybe even queuing theory, and identified the optimal festival portaloo layout: a strict one-way system with pods and plenty of staff to keep lines moving. It never took more than 10 minutes to go. These festival loos were clean, had coat hooks and running water. Water stations were plentiful and easy to access too.
LAB’s late afternoon set offered new songs and nostalgia, including a cover of Simple Mind’s ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’. I bumped into a bunch of old friends across the weekend – past workmates I used to jog around Hagley Park with after work and former frisbee teammates I’d competed with on the same fields we were now dancing on.
Electric Avenue is an annual moment of reconnection for the city and it’s a real triumph that it’s still being hosted in Hagley Park. It seems a rare thing to be able to scale an event to this size and manage to keep it in the place of its birth, a place many attendees already feel at home in, familiar with and connected to.
Post-LAB, Shapeshifter’s set with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and Ladi6 felt like a gift to Ōtautahi. Put simply, it was special – a total treat to see three local acts, all legends in their own rights, coordinate creatively and bring the house down. In 2019, Shapey reopened Christchurch Town Hall, just down the street, with the orchestra. While I barely knew their songs then, these two sets left me with the same exact feeling. They were full of love and hope for Christchurch, for Aotearoa, a reminder that we’ve got something special here.
Day one closed with a solid drum and bass set from Chase & Status. It’s the kind of music that makes you want to dance hard and tell your mates how much you love them. The only complaint I heard? Too quiet.
Day two saw another hometown act, Yurt Party, rock the Cosmic Stage. Large scale festivals don’t tend to have artful stages but Cosmic offers colourful shade sails and its own environment. Yurt Party, who started out playing gin gin on New Regent Street just a stones throw away, pulled a great crowd who were dancing arm-in-arm by the end to their fast paced, Balkan inspired, rapture-like, violin-led tunes.
Later in the day, Ladi6 and her crew, including her partner Parks, played Cosmic stage. Their joy was palpable. “Today is really special for us,” Parks said at one point, “21 years ago today our son was born and he’s here in the crowd tonight.” Imagine celebrating your 21st, watching your mum and dad play a festival of that size in the city where they started. This set took place just 50m from the Christchurch Marathon finish line. Two years ago I crossed it as Ladi6’s ‘Like Water’ came onto my shuffle.
Fat Freddy’s set reminded fans of how they pack out festivals all over the world with their buzzy dub, reggae, jazz mashups. ‘Wandering Eye’ went off, lead singer Dallas Tamaira commented on how well organised Electric Ave was and Hohepa nailed his tuba solo in his signature bedazzled white stubby and singlet look. They played The Hangar stage, which was completely packed. This stage either is, or looks very similar to, an actual airplane hangar. And it’s behind one of the only gripes I’ve heard about Electric Avenue 2025.
“Maybe a victim of the festival’s own success, the hangar was a great addition 3 years ago when the festival wasn’t as big, but now it’s way too small for the big acts like Wilkinson. I couldn’t even get past the back edge of the hangar for Rudimental, I didn’t even try to get in for Wilkinson because I knew it was going to be bad,” festival-goer Tony Zhou told me.
The upshot of The Hangar is you get better sound and punchier graphics – both lose an edge outside. But it was packed, hot and extremely humid. I saw two people faint – one recovered and one got carried out. While Wilkinson was hectic, it was also a highlight. “This set means so much to me,” a friend in my group mentioned, “We really grew up with their music.” We celebrated my 25th birthday on the other side of the city at his set on Gloucester Green, which is now townhouses.
The Kooks, meanwhile, played their sweet, lovey songs and wondered why they’d never been to Christchurch before. Electronic duo Maribou State, also out from the UK, wowed with live vocals and a full band. And Khruangbin, serious yet ethereal guitar shredders from Texas, made the Garden City their very first tour stop. They played Christchurch Town Hall on Thursday night pre-festival. They did not make an Auckland stop.
The Prodigy closed down Electric Avenue 2025. The vibe was maybe not quite right to end such a triumphant event, with the set going up and down in energy and wrapping oddly early. But I don’t think it really mattered. As we left, my friend who’d bought the Electric Avenue T-shirt, who has made Christchurch her home, turned to me and said, “I’m just so proud of this festival.”
