Dry Cleaning
Hollywood Avondale, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Wednesday, June 4th
We’re in the depths of the Strange Universe now. The winter concert series cooked up by Strange News and Banished Music has quickly become a staple of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland’s live music scene, bringing a diverse array of international musicians over to the city while simultaneously platforming incredible local bands.
At the Hollywood Avondale on Wednesday night, there was no discrimination between returning London headliners Dry Cleaning and their support act, sibling dream-pop trio Womb.
“You already know and love them”, English guitarist Tom Dowse said of their openers. The crowd cheered back in agreement, before Dowse cheekily implied he would pull off a stage dive directly into the mates they had made on their Aotearoa tour. There isn’t a question here: these independent shows are borderline double headliners.
Image: Womb Credit: Isabella Rose Young
Dry Cleaning’s take on the most recent London post-punk wave through the late ’10s and early ’20s eschews the maximalism found in Black Country, New Road and black midi in exchange for lashings of lyrical wit. Kicking off with a couple EPs to drum up hype for their debut LP New Long Leg in 2021, the band took the first free moments out of the pandemic to keep their incredible energy going. In 2022 they pumped out another album, Stumpwork, and toured across the world, including hitting The Tuning Fork and San Fran in Aotearoa New Zealand at the tail end of that year.
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Image: Womb Credit: Isabella Rose Young
I’ve caught Womb — the Flying Nun-signed Forrester siblings, Cello and Haz with drummer Georgette Brown — live every chance I’ve gotten, as each set leaves me in a daze. I would’ve seen them twice in 2024, watching spellbinding sets at Te Whanganui-a-Tara festivals Camp A Low Hum and Great Sounds Great before their stellar Double Whammy release show for their latest record, One Is Always Heading Somewhere. They’ve continued to kill it since, warming up the Harikoa Stage at Laneway 2026 while seemingly tinkering away at new material. Seeing Womb live always leaves me stunned.
The trio were pushed to the front of the Hollywood Avondale stage, combining a stripped-down Gretsch drum set and Cello Forrester’s semi-hollow Epiphone guitar with a Roland drum pad and a variety of electronic instruments wielded by their brother. It’s an incredibly textural set-up, where each pedal, drumstick, tuning, and sample seems to have been meticulously selected, curated, and crafted. They didn’t need to share a cable of gear with the headliners — outlining their slightly curious placement alongside the sharp-witted post-punk band.
Alongside the title track of their last record, and the best fucking cowbell hits I’ve heard in Aotearoa music in “Only You”, Womb revisited their cover of the late, great electronic artist SOPHIE’s “Is It Cold in the Water?”. It was difficult to see the band through teary eyes, but that seems to be their goal. I was left gutted that their set was so short — I hope the track “Sometimes”, ending with the vocalist yelling at the top of their lungs on repeat, makes a return to their setlist by the time I inevitably get to see them again.
Image: Dry Cleaning Credit: Isabella Rose Young
“Happy birthday to you” were Dry Cleaning vocalist Florence Shaw’s first words on stage, kicking off their set as the interlocked rhythm section of bassist Lewis Maynard and drummer Nick Buxton forced the crowd off of their feet. I don’t think I’ve seen a groovier punk show than this — everybody was swinging like it was a club night at Neck of the Woods, or rather like they were at a disco in the seventies. While the band’s recorded material remains in the vein of art-rock and post-punk, it showed a clear appetite for the return of dance-punk to Tāmaki Makaurau.
The band, accompanied by Josh Eggerton on an acoustic guitar and some synthesizers, don’t hold back on the crowd favourites from their newest LP Secret Love, like ‘Sliced by a Fingernail’. The touring members’ textures are a welcome addition to a lot of Dry Cleaning’s most minimal cuts, with softer acoustic strums contrasting against the sharpness of Dowse’s Jazzmaster and Telecaster accents. Shaw is also across various elements of percussion, with a second microphone seeming a bit closer to her knees than where her hands were shaking maracas and tambourines. It sounded great, though, so I’m sure the stellar engineer of the night had a better idea of how technology works than I did.
Image: Dry Cleaning Credit: Isabella Rose Young
The hypnotic nature of Dry Cleaning was in full effect by the middle of the set, as the sounds became more reverb-laden and loose through the bands more melodic tracks of recent. “Anna Calls From the Arctic” was delivered with trumpet samples that sounded lifelike, and Shaw settled into a cozy swagger as her stage presence and baggy outfit led her through the lyrics.
Before a final encore in crowd favourite “Hit My Head All Day”, the band looped the final bars of “Conversation” on repeat, initially on their own instruments before walking off stage and letting their loop pedals, guitar feedback, and the crowd’s cheers hold momentum.
Over the course of the night, the crowd unified through the special fusion that comes from Strange Universe shows at the Hollywood Avondale. More international bands are on their way here for the concert series, with the producer of Dry Cleaning’s latest album Cate Le Bon playing the Powerstation this Friday (June 5th) with Mainard Larkin.
Liam Hansen is a music writer and editor based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, playing in the emo band Clementine and promoting gigs as Misheard.
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