Gig Review: Andrew Fagan @ Vogelmorn Hall, Wellington – 15/11/2025

Tonight, Andrew Fagan’s latest tour, Passage Of Time, delivered much more than just your average greatest hits show. With his quirky, often wacky style he gave us a surprisingly intimate journey through his music, poetry, and adventures on the high seas.

The boy who grew up in Island Bay, just over the hill, has returned on a tour to support the release of his latest album Passage of Time: 1991–2025. It’s a career-spanning compilation that showcases Fagan’s incredible, and I think sometimes under-appreciated, songwriting versatility. From introspective ballads to vibrant pop anthems, the collection is a testament to his enduring artistry and skill. Tracks like I Still Want You and Band of Rain reveal him as a songwriter unafraid to explore vulnerability and resilience, whilst Exciting and Just Landed capture his playful, adventurous spirit and penchant for a bit of occasional musical confrontation.

Some of his music is made for the stadiums. Some of it for the campfire. Taking it on the road this month, Fagan is undertaking with a more universal and ambitious goal: connection. This is not a big venue tour. Far from it. Most of the 20ish venues around the country will be small halls and clubs, like tonight’s location.

Once a genteel hub of white polyesters, cucumber sandwiches, and Ladies’ Days, Vogelmorn Bowling Club has reinvented itself as a gloriously boho community venue. Think retro snapshot meets Salvage Hunters: trophies, faded photos, mismatched furniture, even a scale model of New Zealand’s first wind turbine in a glass cage. In its day it was a place of predominantly respectable Sunday retirees. Now the once impeccably manicured greens host a capsized biplane, well-loved trike and a trampoline. Whilst inside you’ll find a café, craft beer bar, art room with Santa parade props, drag shows, a lounge, and a thriving crèche. A mural honours members past on the retaining wall. But upstairs it’s pure shabby chic — wood paneling, velvet curtains, fake mahogany bar, and sunlight pouring through big picture windows. What remains, though, is a strong community vibe and a real sense of welcome. It’s like an extended lounge.

Tonight, 120 people have sneaked up the hidden back staircase to squeeze onto rickety chairs and sagging couches, sipping fruity APAs and buttery Marlborough Chardonnays, waiting for the show to begin. The old bowling club may have retired disgracefully, but it’s never been more alive. The stage is simple and temporary. Easy to get into the van. Fagan’s mic stand is a strangely appropriate hunk of driftwood, decorated in fairy lights. There are just two LED stage lights aimed up from the floor, a lectern for reading poetry, an amp and portable speakers, some guitars, an old classroom projector and screen and in the centre a strange figure, dressed in a white hoodie and velvet green pirate’s doublet.

“Andrew couldn’t make it tonight,” announces Fagan, “Some mental health problems. I’m his brother ‘Philip’. I’ll be doing the show.” Then ‘Philip’ (Fagan forgets who he is through the show) launches into a couple of songs from Andrew’s back catalogue, including his big solo hit Jerusalem, strummed with poignant aggression on his electrified acoustic.

Relishing the moment, and his captive audience, he kicks into a series of bleak poems about being a roadie in the UK, LSD’s, procreation, drugs and working on a freighter sailing around Pitcairn island and French Polynesia. The poems are short and punchy. ‘Philip’ tinkles a bell at the conclusion each one so that we know when to clap… and … wait a minute! You sailed around Pitcairn Island? Where Mutiny of the Bounty happened? Wow. That’s a long way from the picking up an award for Top Male Vocalist and Best Band at the 1985 Music Awards.

Fagan’s delivery is typically self-deprecating. He looks on his wins and losses with equal measure. Each poem has a bit of a back story, which keeps us well entertained, although, with the exception of one diversion to honour a fallen Roadie mate, he never gets too close or personal. He briefly features a photo of his son and merely glances past the rest of his family. The focus is clearly on music and sailing. Still, as a master story teller, Fagan is in no hurry, and he’s enjoying winding us all up with his yarns.

To complete the first half, he gets out the slides and takes us through his attempt to sail around the world from cape to cape singlehandedly in a five-metre loop-rigged plywood yacht called ‘Swirly World in Perpetuity’ in 2022. I enjoyed his wee diversions into the technical side of the operation. For example, to prepare, he purchased over $7K worth of dried meals, which you just add water, created from a hand-cranked desalinator. Apparently, 4 hours of pumping will give you a couple of litres of fresh water.

The trip was all going well, he says. That is, until he was 2,600 km into the journey, halfway between Auckland and Cape Horn, the boat’s skeg and rudder were damaged and then lost in a huge storm, effectively crippling the boat. So, Fagan had to abandon it when he was rescued by a container vessel. It’s still out there, his boat – maybe. Naïvely, he left a return to sender note. Who knows, it may come back. Highly unlikely, though.

He goes into quite some detail to paint the picture for us, but despite the ordeal doesn’t seem particularly concerned and yearns to get back out on the sea again. His ‘happy place’. The narration is warm and conversational, and often a little bit off the wall with the jokes. But we all laugh warmly. It’s like your uncle has wrapped himself in the duvet as a makeshift costume and is telling the kids his version of ‘Treasure Island’ or ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.

After a short break Fagan returns in a sparkly shirt and white crown that reminds me of Max from ‘Where The Wild Things Are’. Apparently, it’s his ‘King Messiah’ crown, Kurt Shanks, the tour’s manager, roadie, and support musician tells me later. Appropriate as Fagan adopts Olivier-styled King Lear poses in the prevailing-coloured lights to deliver a manic rendition of Messiah and a grungy version of Between the Day (Who Am I?). That was followed, unpredictably, by a couple of unexpected soft rock covers. The first is Won’t Last A Day Without You, originally done by Paul Williams (who we are reminded was a guest star on The Muppets back in the 70’s). That’s followed by a hit I haven’t heard since I listened to 2ZB in the 80’s: the very cheesy and corny ballad Bluer Than Blue by Randy Goodrum. Odd choices. But they kind of worked.

On the screen behind Fagan is a bizarre triangle image, which has appeared on his various livery over the decades. He says he first saw it in his mind’s eye camping out past Red Rocks in Wellington when he was 12. It’s an image that’s travelled with him through his career, he reckons. “I think, it’s some kind of cult thing. I’m in an unsuccessful cult. I’m the only member!” Because he tells this with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it’s hard to know exactly which leg he’s pulling.

With the help of a menacing backing track, he does a noisy take on Empty, which he tells us was keenly supported by influential BBC radio host John Peel and helped revive his career in Europe. “We got three years out of that one touring around off its coat tails. And we sold 55 albums in Greece!” Then Kurt hops up to play some acoustic for the much-awaited Mockers tracks: Shield Yourself, One Black Friday and Swear It’s True. Someone in the audience calls for My Girl Thinks She’s Cleopatra. But they play Forever Tuesday Morning instead, which finally gets the room singing along. It’s not that everyone was bored or disengaged – far from it. Sometimes Kiwis are a little intimidated when the room is so small we can all see the whites of our eyes. That said, no one was complaining as we sang all the lyrics together, happily. It was a warm, welcoming room, and these were still his people.

The night closed on Passage of Time, the single written for his retrospective compilation of solo work. It’s a clever, tuneful and melodic track, contemplating what went before and what can be healed as with the distance of time. I was reminded what a clever, engaging songwriter Fagan really is. That along with his sailing adventures, crazy costumes and quirky poetry made for a fabulously engaging evening. Definitely worth climbing that secret staircase for. I’m keen to get hold of his book (Swirly World: Lost At Sea) now, too. Even though I’m not a sailor, I reckon it’ll be a cracking read.

Photo Credit: Tim Gruar for Muzic.NZ
Andrew Fagan Photo Gallery