Kelsy Karter and The Heroines

Thirty dates into a thirty five date tour that kicked off in Los Angeles on January 30th, and Auckland-born Kelsy Karter has apparently never been further East in the UK than Norwich, even though the members of her band - Matthew Peach on guitar, Tommy Gent on bass, and drummer Sebastian Boyse, all hail from this country. Having released her debut single in 2015, and with her cover of a Simple Minds song featuring in an episode of season four of '12 Monkeys' in 2018, Karter still has yet to really set the music world on fire, even though her flirtation with fame possibly peaked in 2019 when her fake facial tattoo of Harry Styles, engineered to promote her single 'Harry', went viral on YouTube.

No such publicity stunts preceded her post-Easter debut at Norwich's Waterfront Studio. Perhaps her target audience were chocolated-out, or maybe were respectfully marking the passing of Pope Francis, but it was a surprisingly sparse crowd that had turned out to help celebrate the launch of her autobiographical rock opera album 'Love Made Me Do It'. Opener 'Are You Entertained' was the first of eight tracks from the album that comprised her fourteen-strong setlist, still leaving room for the infamous 'Harry', and also including previous singles 'Devil On My Shoulder' and 'Cover Me'.

One cannot help but admire Karter's resilience and stagecraft when faced with such a modest turn-out at the Waterfront, and the band were nothing short of excellent, but I have to admit that I came away from the gig somewhat underwhelmed. There were flashes of brilliance, paying homage to Karters's declared love of of Queen, Bowie and Winehouse, but I was still left with a feeling that we had not witnessed the best of Auckland's rock and roll maverick queen.