The Sydney Opera House is draped in Vivid’s hallucinatory light and hums with anticipation as we wait for Marlon Williams, one of Aotearoa’s most enigmatic voices to take take the stage for his long-awaited solo return. Williams, of Ngāi Tahu and Ngāi Tai descent, hasn’t performed a headline set here since 2019, when he graced the forecourt.
Over the past decade, Williams has become one of New Zealand’s most singular musical exports — a shape-shifting artist who has traversed alt-country, bluegrass, synth-pop and soul. Born in Christchurch, his 2015 self-titled debut landed him in the top ten and on the lips of critics worldwide. 2018’s Make Way for Love turned heartbreak into baroque pop theatre, while 2022’s My Boy leaned into “Māori disco” and playful, sunlit synths. In between, he’s appeared in the movies A Star Is Born, True History of the Kelly Gang, and Lone Wolf.
This year he released Te Whare Tīwekaweka (“The Messy House”)— a record entirely in Te Reo Māori which features a guest vocal from his long-time friend and fellow emotional cartographer Lorde (on “Kāhore He Manu E”.)
The show is kicked off by a rousing kapa haka, and the colourfully dressed dancers captivate the audience from the outset. It’s a powerful and fitting prelude — a grounding of the night in ceremony, connection, and cultural pride — before the stage is handed over to Williams.
A tall and slender figure, Williams stalks onto the Concert Hall stage. There’s a gravity to his presence, a quiet that draws you in. No grand opening, no flash. Just that voice — (the first two songs are delivered in nearly complete darkness) plaintive, elemental — and the haunting tones of Te Whare Tīwekaweka unfurling like mist across a darkened moor. The songs move slowly, richly, as though carried on ancestral breath.
Then suddenly, the band swings into action and there’s a shift in tempo and mood. There’s a rollicking version of My Boy, and Williams, the consummate performer, knows exactly how to lean into it, his charm and presence lifting the room in an instant. Dressed in a sharp black suit, his dark hair slicked back, there’s something undeniably rakish about him — a flash of a young Elvis Presley in silhouette. It’s a striking juxtaposition: the crooner aesthetic of a 1950s icon delivering songs steeped in ancestral memory. But that’s the alchemy of Marlon Williams — bridging worlds, bending time, and making it all feel entirely his own.
Images Deb Pelser
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