Erin Harrington reviews The Māori Sidesteps at the Great Hall, Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre, Thursday 12 June, 2025.
The Māori Sidesteps are expert entertainers with charisma to die for. They pay full-throated homage to legendary Māori showbands like the Volcanics, the Howard Morrison Quartet and the Quin Tikis, while weaving Māoritanga through satirical skits, waiata, parodies and stories. Exquisite harmonies house pointed ribbing at racism and inequality. This one-off show is an inspired inclusion in this year’s Matariki programming at Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre, showing that reflection and remembrance works just as well with a punchline.
The night is opened by Juanita Hepi, who revs up the crowd with a very funny and not so formal mihi tautoko; e hoa, you need to do some stand up. Enter the Sidesteps, in bowler and top hats, colonial white smock shirts, jeans, and skirts made from Union Jacks. The group’s founder Jamie McCaskill is joined by Regan Taylor, Cohen Holloway, Sāmoan Sidestep Jerome Leota, and a guest appearance from local boy Cameron Clayton. No set, just five microphones, a guitar, and a drum – and their gorgeous voices, in rich harmony, belting out poignant and well-adapted waiata with joy and humour. Kudos to whoever works on the arrangements, as they are first class.
There’s skits, a touch of opera, a riled up nanny, a game show in which contestants can win their land back (if they play the game the right way), a litany of call outs, and a very funny Matariki storytime with matua Tem Morrison. If you’ve been following the group for a while through their live shows and various series there’s some favourites: their Sinatra-infused “Marae Way”; “Māori Man”; a version of “Minnie the Moocher” that encourages the audience to kōrero Māori; a riff on “My Old Man’s An All Black”; sung histories of Aotearoa. There’s also a lot of gentle prodding at the majority Pākehā audience, laughter, and impressions of crotchety talkback listeners waving fists at ‘bloody maaris’. It’s all a great vehicle for a few home truths; you don’t get that many comic songs about the downstream effects of the Land Wars. Anyone walking away without wanting to tautoko the sentiment ‘toitū te Tiriti’, and thinking a bit more about the role of politicians and media companies in pushing divisive rhetoric, probably hasn’t been listening.
The overarching message is one of connection, of loving each other for our differences, of pride in our various identities, of mana mohutake, of joy as an antidote to division. The audience whoops and cheers throughout, clapping, singing along to a rendition of Prince Tui Teka’s “My Ding-A-Ling”. My favourite part is watching the performers surprise each other, cracking each other up. The Sidesteps have been performing for about a decade, and it’s so uplifting to watch people play, loving doing what they do, and loving performing with one another.
I last saw the Māori Sidesteps when their show ran for a fortnight at The Court Theatre in 2022. It was first-rate, but I think I prefer this iteration in the warmth of the gorgeous wood and limestone barrel-vaulted Great Hall. The room is closer, more intimate, the performance a touch more relaxed. The acoustics aren’t always perfect but there’s a richness to the sound, which curves right around the back of the room into a full embrace. There’s a tongue-in-cheek tension between the space’s colonial history, as the prestigious centre of the neo-Gothic Canterbury College campus, and the content of the nudge-wink show. There’s also space to get up on your feet down the back, to respond in ways discouraged by more rigid seating. It’s terrific – audience members offer an electric haka tautoko at the end.
This Matariki performance is perfect for a cosy, rainy night of whakawhanaungatanga – aroha, not (too much) hōhā. I leave having laughed till I cried, my throat sore from cheering, my heart more full than it’s been in a while. Mauri ora!
The Māori Sidesteps performed Thursday 12 June 2025. Matariki programming continues until Sunday 22 June.
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