Live Review: I Love The 90s Tour - Trusts Arena, Auckland (+ Photos)

Having been born in the 90s, my introduction to artists such as Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Tone Loc and Young MC came via the medium of PlayStation's SingStar. Despite having butchered all of the aforementioned performers' best-known tracks more times then I care to remember, I look back at all of them with great fondness. What a treat it was to be given the chance to see these songs as they were intended to be.

Upon arriving at Trusts Arena, I noted that the number on my allocated ticket was numbered 3000. This caused my companion to suffer through my subpar attempts at quoting, verbatim, the intro skit from the music video for Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’. Y’know, to properly get in the spirit of things... even if that particular tune did fall a few years outside of the distinct decade which was being celebrated on this particular night.

Inside, Young MC’s 'Bust A Move' ticked all the boxes in the early evening, inciting exactly what the hook suggests a thousand times over for the sea of Canadian tuxedo-clad attendees. Color Me Badd’s ‘All For Love’ set the swoony vibes in motion and there was Beatles-esque pandemonium when smooth banger ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’ was pulled out. The group did great justice to Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity', delivering a glorious onset of musical decadence of Dionysian proportions that had me humming along.

Coolio’s super-animated stage presence was an inferno of energy and his set out-hyped MCs half his age while his mind-bogglingly tight live band held down the west coast style accompaniments like nobody’s business. The Compton MC had a good chunk of west Auckland spending their Saturday night living in the obligatory ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’. His tribute to Prince, complete with a projection of the late-great artist’s signature purple hieroglyph, was also another set highlight.

The trio of Salt-N-Pepa bought the lady power and were arguably the audience’s favourite of the evening. In between ageless hits like ‘None Of Your Business’, ‘Gitty Up’ and career cornerstone ‘Let’s Talk About Sex’, the two vocalists bantered happily with audience members. Meanwhile DJ Spinderella pumped out a slew of big tunes, some, such as ‘Push It’ being synonymous with group and others, such as Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ not so much.

Though the throng of audience members toward the front of the standing section made it fairly challenging to get close enough to the stage to get an amazing view, having a solid chunk of personal space was a wonderfully rejuvenating contrast to other experiences I’ve had at gatherings of similar sizes. The atmosphere of the arena was a sublime balance between hectic partying and friendly, respectful vibes.

To close out the evening, Vanilla Ice took the stage and bought with him an excellent rendition of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song and a slew of hilarious stage props. Knowing I had ticked off the bucket list item of seeing ‘Ice Ice Baby’ in the flesh, I decided to call it an evening rather then risk any following material being overshadowed by the sub-zero themed hit.

The event as a whole was not messing around about it’s namesake. As well as all the killer artists on the line up, we were treated to tastes of Eminem’s 'The Real Slim Shady' and the opening riff to Guns N’ Roses' 'Sweet Child O’ Mine', among many other classics - and although it wasn’t quite the same as seeing the original performers of those tunes in the flesh, the attention to thematic detail of the concert’s organisers did a spectacular job of capturing and maintaining the zeitgeist of the 90s.

This show was a wonderful reminder that hip hop and it’s surrounding culture is capable of having a bit of good, clean fun: a stark contrast to much of the genre’s more modern, grimy image and lyricism. Needless to say, today was a good day.

Check out the stellar shots of the evening below, courtesy of Ngamihi Pawa