Features
The Biggest Show On Earth: SIX60 Plays Six Stadium Shows
Joel McDowell – Six60 plays Wellington, New Zealand
cover of Pollstar 3/8/21 issue
On a warm Wellington, New Zealand, summer evening, on Feb. 13, 2021, rock band Six60’s lead singer Matiu Walters stood before a sell-out crowd of 32,000* at Sky Stadium and yelled “Haere Mai [‘welcome’ in the indigenous Maori language] Wellington! Welcome to the biggest show on earth!”
The fans chanted back, “This is forever, yeah!” from the chorus of their early hit “Forever.” Walters was not in any way being hyperbolic.
Thanks to New Zealand’s successful response to COVID-19 and with no social distancing restrictions or bans on mass gatherings, no other act in the world has played to an audience that size in 2021 as well as for most of 2020 to boot.
Six60 just wrapped a six-date run to a total of 125,000 (the final date on Feb. 27 was simultaneously broadcast on TikTok to 1 million viewers, according to an external estimate), which followed 120,000 stubs for their 2020 tour.
– The Great Unknow
Six60 looking much like U2, pictured performing a stadium show in-the-round at one of the biggest operational concert stages in the world right now, Sky Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand.
“These are incredible figures,” agrees the band’s New York-based manager, John Reilly, who signed them up in 2016 in partnership with J. Erving Group. “They’re the largest stadium act in the world, in any genre … There’s a lot of great music out there but there aren’t a lot of stadium bands who can play to a crowd of 50,000, which is something special. That allows them a great advantage over a lot of other bands (in the world) in that space.”
Adds Brent Eccles, founder of Eccles Entertainment, Six60’s agent and tour promoter, “No other act in New Zealand or Australia (which is three hours away by air and also an active touring market) has come close to these numbers.”
To put their run in perspective of sales by international superstar tourists to New Zealand, three “Black Ice” shows by AC/DC drew 110,363; three by Adele in March 2016 had 130,000; and two by U2 on their 360º Tour 2010 reached 93,519.
The Six60 Saturdays Tour, on consecutive weekends, began at Waitangi Sports Ground in Waitangi (Jan. 16) and Tomoana Showgrounds in Hastings (Jan. 23), to 20,000 each. The TSB Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth (Jan.30) attracted 15,000. Hagley Park in Christchurch (Feb. 6) had 23,000. The Wellington show was on Feb. 13 with 32,000*. The final date at Claudelands Oval in Hamilton was to 25,000 on Feb. 27.
In addition, Auckland’s 47,500-seat sporting stadium Eden Park got green-lighted on Jan. 15 to host six concerts a year. Six60 are determined the first music event there be an NZ act, and it should be them. Walters told Pollstar the band was aiming for an April show there. It’s not decided if it will be a Six60 Saturdays encore or a stand-alone.
When the Six60 Saturdays Tour was put together, it faced a coronavirus outbreak possibility in addition to the normal council and touring logistics of the 2020 tour.
Recalls Reilly, “We didn’t know if it would go into lockdown. New Zealand’s a small touring country and a lot of gear comes from abroad. This time it all had to be sourced locally, which made all the difference.”
(Courtesy Six60) –
The Biggest Show on Earth: Six60’s rocks an enthusiastic crowd of 30,000+ at Sky Stadium in Wellington, NZ on Feb. 13, 2021.
For protection, Eccles Entertainment tapped on fan loyalty, that they had to accept three sets of dates through 2021 when they bought tickets. If the first was postponed, the tour seamlessly slipped to the next without refunds.
“Given the size of the New Zealand market, we couldn’t take the financial risk otherwise,” he explains.
Health officials wanted each fan’s phone to be installed with a COVID Tracer app and have their Bluetooth feature turned on allowing health authorities to track infections and inform users.
Ironically, during the final Hamilton show, thousands of phones went off, as authorities advised that a single COVID breach could spark a wider outbreak. Auckland was going into a 10-day lockdown next day (Feb. 28) to stop a breakout.
Recounts Eccles, “They literally made the announcement as the band walked on to the stage! We just scraped in.
“It’s not the first time, either. Four days after the second Western Springs last year, the entire country went into lockdown. It must have something to do with our clean living.”
For Six60 it’s a case of devising what the next major project will be.
Kerry Marshall / Getty Images – Six60
played to 22,000 fans at the Hawkes Bay A&P Showgrounds ?in Hastings, New Zealand, Jan?. 23.
Walters says, “We’ve never had trouble thinking we could take on the world. We write music for masses intending them to be heard, to be spread as far as possible and play to as many people as possible.
“That’s always been the intention. It feels good year after year, you’re playing bigger shows, taking on bigger challenges, and pulling off big risks that people warned us about not doing.”
Walters, Ji Fraser (guitar), Marlon Gerbes (synths, samples), Chris Mac (bass) and Eli Paewai (drums) met in 2008 at University of Otago in Dunedin. They took their name from their shared house at 660 Castle Street.
Their initial audience of college students expanded rapidly after their first album in 2011 (self titled, as are all their three albums) went triple platinum, yielded numerous radio hits and six wins at the NZ Music Awards.
“When we started out the New Zealand roots and dub reggae scene was thriving at the time with bands like Che Fu and Black Seeds. We identified with them, young Black men doing it for the first time, with the approach that music is meant to be shared as a collective energy, around a campfire or a garage party,” says Walters, who descends from New Zealand’s indigenous Maori people as do Gerbes and Paewai.
That pride in their culture and heritage and communal attitude is augmented by anthemic hook-ridden songs, and has stayed with Six60 even when they became the first NZ act to sell out the 50,000-seat Western Springs stadium in Auckland, first in February 2019 and again in February 2020.
They toured incessantly, careful to refresh the set on each run. They sold 1 million singles. Their current album had, as of March 1, spent 68 weeks at No. 1 or No. 2 spot on the charts.
The success of their collective energy hit home last November when they held a world premiere of their movie “SIX60: Till The Lights Go Out” on New Zealand flight NZ660 between Auckland and Dunedin filled only with fans.
“It sold out in 10 minutes. The energy on the plane was so cool. We were taken aback by the cross-section of the audience – including little children and grandparents, from all walks of life. That made us really happy and really proud.”
In 2016 Six60 was looking international, signing to U.S. management and to Epic Records. And just last year the group had made plans to play the US and the UK as well as at the Tokyo Olympics, all of which were put on hold after world borders closed.
– Promoter Brent Eccles
says “No other act in New Zealand or Australia has come close to these numbers.” Pictured with the band are Eccles and team. Back Row (L-R): Marlon Gerbes (SIX60), Colleen Cure (Accountant), Jess Abraham (Artist Liaison), Jenn McCormick (Promoter Rep), Jaz Kapow (Site Manager), Lisa Stokes (EA to Brent Eccles), Neville Carseldine (Tour Security), Bruce Carseldine (Artist Security). Front Row (L-R): John Reilly (SIX60 Manager), Dave Munro (Promoter), Matiu Walters (SIX60), Eli Paewai (SIX60), Ji Fraser (SIX60), Helen Eccles (Promoter), Brent Eccles (Promoter), Chris Mac (SIX60)?.
News about the last two NZ tours has reignited attention from outside the country.
Reilly suggests why.
“The story behind them is really interesting. Their live show plays a major role. They’ve been around for 10 years, so people in New Zealand have got to see them play as they built up from the grassroots level, and they’ve got an incredible bond with fans.”
In a statement, co-manager Julius Erving said, “Six60 represent where music is today. They embody the talent that will allow them to be global music trendsetters which is what we … saw when we signed them.”
In the meantime, Epic dropped a digital single “All She Wrote” at the end of February, and the band is working on new music for later in the year. The band is also talking about a live album, to be recorded at 660 Castle Street, where it all started for 2021’s biggest band in the world.
Subsequent Box Office Reports submitted to Pollstar after this article came out put the paid tickets for Six60’s at Wellington’s Sky Stadium on Feb. 13 at 30,022.