28/02/2026

Theia – Whammy Bar: February 27, 2026 (13th Floor Concert Review)

Theia finally celebrated her Girl, In A Savage World album with a release show at Auckland’s finest dive bar…Whammy.

Auckland was jumping on this Friday night…there were shows everywhere…Troy Kingi at Double Whammy, Hemi Hemingway down the street at Neck Of Te Woods, Ocean Alley at Spark Arena, Dub FX & Tiki Taane at Tuning Fork and a host of 90s bands including Tadpole and Good Charlotte at The Domain.

So, to say we were spoilt for choice would be an understatement.

But my first choice was always going to be Theia (while hoping to catch a bit of Hemi)

And it’s a decision I stand by.

Whammy’s doors opened at the unusually early time of about 7:30 with DJ AJ Honeysuckle allowing fans to settle in and get in the appropriate mindset for what Theia (Em-Haley Walker) had to offer.

The four members of Rehekorero helped with their spoke word performance which was inspiring and passionate.

The overall theme of Theia’s songs on her album are protest, resistance and indigenous rights.

The audience’s respect for what Theia is doing was evident from the moment she and her band took the stage.

After a brief, pre-recorded message came…silence. There was a technical issue with the electric guitar and, incredibly the crowd and Theia remained silent for a full three minutes before Theia finally spoke and broke the tension.

In my experience, at any other show, there would have been cat-calls and complaints from the audience immediately.

Once Theia spoke, the crowd took it as permission to relax and talk among themselves until the problem was solved.

The wait was worth it.

Theia sang, unaccompanied at first, Holy War, the opening track of the album, in a delicate, breathy tone, her voice drenched in echo. The band eventually fell in and the celebration had truly begun.

Its immediately evident that the songs that make up this album mean a lot to the artist. Theia took as much time as she wanted to go into detail on how and why they were written…how her family, her “siblings” and specifically, her great-grandmother was an inspiration and a motivation in her musical journey.

Again, at many shows I’ve attended, the crowd would be impatient, shouting out for the next song.

Not here, not tonight.

The fans hung on to every word, encouraging Theia with finger snaps and claps.

The band was proudly all-female…guitarist Marcella Adisurya, Peau Halapua on violin, Loise Vea on drums and bass player Hannah Elise.

And the set list was predominately original, with a cover of “Uncle Roy Orbison’s” In Dreams slotted in the middle.

Peau’s violin was especially lovely during I Need An Angel while the intro to Rangirara was, in a word, heavenly.

Throughout the set, Theia touched on a range on social and spiritual topics, but never came across as preachy even as she urged us to “make the right choice” after BALD3AD!, a song “inspired by Christopher Luxon” that she claimed “started it all”.

So, there is some good to come out of this current government..

The highlight for me was learning that Theia’s great-grandmother, Mite Te Aho Karaka Kukutai had written topical songs in the 1940s and Theia performed a couple of them tonight, including Kiwi Weka, which she had recorded as a single in 2021.

Closing the set with the 19^th century Pai Marire Chant, Theia urged us to “continue to fight the good fight”.

Easy to do with a soundtrack as sweet as this.

(yes, I caught a couple of tunes from Hemi)

Marty Duda

Click on any image to view a photo gallery by Chris Zwaagdyk:

Theia: