The Veils: intelligent and engaging
What: The Veils
Where: Last Place, Hamilton
Date: July 3, 2026
Reviewed by: Kent Macpherson
The Veils took the stage at Hamilton’s Last Place after a beautifully slow and gentle support set from Aotearoa’s own Jazmine Mary.
The Veils are touring their latest album, Fragile World nationally, with a mix of solo and band shows. For this gig, the 5 piece band began the set with 3 or so piano driven ballads. These helped ease the capacity crowd into the diverse and dynamic show to come, with Finn Andrews voice weaving power and sensitivity through the mid tempo song structures.
The multi instrumentalist band supporting these opening songs with subtlety and dynamic movement. The use of vocoded backing vocals was reminiscent of Bon Iver at times while tasteful and gentle drums were holding down the bottom end nicely.
Soon enough the material got heavier and darker with odd time signatures and powerful violin solos courtesy of Dave Khan.
Andrews beaten up Fender Jazzmaster shines through this section with angular shards of energy and heartfelt lyrics about love and loss. A true highlight through this middle section of the set was the rolling uptempo ‘Birds’.
Things got dark and sinister in ‘Here Come the Dead’ with menacing synth bass, organ and shimmering percussion.
Shades of The Waterboys, PJ Harvey and the Bad Seeds permeate these songs. Intelligent, and at times, abstract lyrics engage the listener at every turn. Always joyous and rhythmically engaging for the whole 75 or so minutes.
It is always a pleasure to see a band of this calibre in a small venue outside of the major centres. The Veils are proof that great songs and excellent musicianship are very much alive and as important as ever to humankind
Kent Macpherson is a sonic artist, phonographer and composer, who teaches in the School of Media Arts, Wintec.
