It’s Friday night at the Powerstation and the urge to party is so strong you can taste it. More than one tribe of Auckland is represented in the heaving crowd and most of them aren’t fancy people. They’re the ones who bought their tickets on the day it was announced that Home Brew would be playing in their home town for the first time in years. The show sold out that same day and the air of expectation is manic.
Home Brew is the group Tom Scott formed in Avondale in 2006 and the scene of various crimes. The band’s self-titled debut album was released in 2012 and became the first local hip-hop album to top the national charts since Scribe’s The Crusader, nearly a decade before. A four-LP vinyl version released in 2014 by a European label now changes hands for more than $700, and a 2023 re-release – the premise for the tour that concluded at the Powerstation at the end of October – is selling.
By the time came out, the band was already scattering andfrom the follow-up album was a Silver Scrolls finalist this year. But it’s Home Brew the people are here for tonight.
