The Liberal Agenda – Shihad’s final chapter in a long Gen X promise

I had convinced my beloved 15 year old daughter to be my plus 1 to Shihad’s final Auckland gig because:

1 – She is going to Tyler the Creator and watched to check out Spark Stadium

2 – She is sick of me going on about old man Gen X bands 

3 – I was yelling about every generation under Gen X having no musical appreciation 

When we arrived she looked around at the crowd.

“There are so many old white Gen X men here you could mistake it for an ACC advert”, she said.

“Too many men over 30 wearing shorts”, she noted disapprovingly.

“It’s like the Marvel multiverse where every possible version of you Dad has been brought together for a concert, except that this a lot sadder”.

I laughed, and laughed and laughed until my chest hurt and I coughed sharply and painfully.

I adore my ruthlessly funny daughter.

When I was a DJ on Channel Z, Shihad was the fucking soundtrack.

When I was Editor of Rip It Up Magazine, I always found a way to put Shihad on the cover because it always sold.

Shihad wasn’t a band, they were a religion.

In them, Gen X had a rock band that was our generations Split Enz. That was our Foo Fighters, our Green Day.

Shihad was an intellectual debate, rock existentialism on these lonely shakes isles.

They were a cultural adolescence that sat with the depression and grief of consumer culture while trying to find meaning through connection, through human emotion, through resisting.

When they left to make it big in America, it was all of us leaving to make it big.

It wasn’t just an OE waiting bars in pubs or doing the Haka topless at Piccadilly Circus Station, it was us, unedited and raw taking over the world on our terms, not its.

The American response to 9/11 and their parochial inability to differentiate between Jihad and Shihad forced a compromise upon them that fans took personal offence with.

We, through them, could pretend that we could take the world on our own terms but the name change showed us we couldn’t and we blamed them.

I remember a passionate staff argument at Channel Z over whether of not we would call them by their new name.

We were so personally invested.

That shot at a bigger dream and the compromises that dream demanded was the crashing adulthood to an elongated adolescence.

They shot for the stars and landed on the moon in perpetual gravity and influence around us as a culture.

Seeing them out at their last gig was a matter of respect to them, their talent, the incredible art they generated and a closing chapter on a special time in our lives when everything was possible.

The gig kicked off with Mim Jensen doing what every opening act to a huge gig 15 minutes after the doors open does, play their heart out in a valiant attempt at attention. She was actually pretty cool. Dick Move provided a tsunami of sound and attitude. The lead singer made reference to the Prime Minister Chris Luxon and made it rhyme with ‘bunt’, much to the crowds appreciation.

The D4 were the perfect entree to Shihad. They walked the same path as Shihad, they got to America, they took their slice of the rock n roll dream and their polished swagger power perforce was a reminder of what a fucking amazing band the D4 always were.

Then they were with us. Jon is the only NZ musician who can make a goatee cool, his long hair now makes him look like a Rock God Yeti as he stormed the stage with Karl, Phil and Tom.

The capacity crowd greeted the songs from the later albums with good grace, but tonight was about Gen X anthems, and the congregation had come for Sunday Prayer.

Jon is one of the best front men in NZ music. Previously to him, musicians had to look terribly bored with their own performance in NZ and scorned you for being so desperate to turn up and listen in the first place. Jon stepped beyond that ‘too cool for school’ condescension and enthusiastically allowed an emotionally uptight generation to connect and jump with the sheer joy of life.

Comfort me.

Run.

When everyone turned on their phon and swayed to Pacifier…

…Passenger, their amazing version of Split Enz, ‘I’ve got you’.

And then ‘Home Again’, their Gen X anthem at the power of home, the attempt to stand in the world and still being drawn back to these Shakey Isles.

It was fucking beautiful.

Our love and our deepest gratitude to Shihad for making us who we are.

They ended on their own terms and how many of us can honestly claim that?

To paraphrase a mighty Māori proverb:

What is the most important thing in the world?

It is Shihad, it is Shihad, it is Shihad.

Afterwards I had raved to my daughter how amazing White Lady Burgers were. We were standing in line when a bleary eyed Shihad fan from the concert stumbled up to me and said, “Bro, are you Bomber”.

I smiled, admitted it and stood for 10 minutes as he told me how Channel Z talkback had changed his life, that he and his mate had traveled up for the gig because Shihad was his soundtrack.

He hugged me.

My daughter grinned and hugged me too.

I almost dropped my White Lady Hawaiian Cheeseburger.

It was a perfect night.

Thank you Shihad.