I remember going to this incredible show and being blown away by it, especially by the DJs. Run DMC told the crowd it was the last show of their world tour, so they were pretty loose and having fun. Rob Salmon from Urban Disturbance told me recently that the original lineup had Eric B and Rakim but they cancelled and got replaced by Derek B and DJ Scratch. He also told me his bandmate Zane Lowe wasn't allowed to go as it was a school night. Here's some recollections of the gig, via Volume mag (RIP) and RNZ...
History Made: Run-D.M.C, The Powerstation
13 Dec, 2011, Volume magazine. By Oscar Kightley
Oscar Kightley witnessed Run-D.M.C. play The Powerstation in Auckland on 18 November 1988.
At the time I was 19 and working as a junior reporter at The Auckland Star. This was back in the days when there were all these stations that used to play ads on TV that said ridiculous shit like "no rap, no crap" - bFM was the only station that was flying the flag for hiphop. That was the music we'd come up on, so it was weird to see that kind of stuff. It was kind of like a statement on what the country was like at the time.
Run-D.M.C. came here in their prime and at a time when no other hiphop artists were coming to New Zealand. I was walking down Queen St before the show and I saw Jam Master Jay walking down the street. No one else around me knew who he was, but I was like, 'F**k - that's Jam Master Jay!' He caught my eye and I tentatively threw up a peace sign in greeting, 'cause that was what we did back then, and he did it back. I will never forget that moment.
Being an impressionable young man, it was amazing to see Jam Master Jay onstage scratching - he was my favourite. And, the thing is, Run-D.M.C didn't just stand there and rap - they had a show and they rocked it.
Back at that time, hiphop was in its infancy in New Zealand, and the culture wasn't the same after that show. We had three kings of hiphop on that stage in Mt Eden, rocking it and getting the crowd involved. Back then, no one did that so it was pretty cool.
It wasn't at all what you'd expect a hiphop gig today to be, which would be a lot of baseball caps and brown people. It was packed and sweaty, and I remember being upstairs and looking down at this sea of young New Zealanders behaving like I'd never seen young New Zealanders behave at a concert, with their hands in the air, throwing them like they just didn't care.
It really wasn't about where you were from, it was where you were at, and that night everybody felt like they were at the same place.
What: Run-D.M.C.
Where: The Powerstation, Auckland
When: Friday 18 November 1988.
RNZ -Under the influence - RUN DMC
On Tuesday 15 November 1988, DJ Run, D.M.C. and Jam Master Jay – the Hollis, Queens trio Run-D.M.C. – made history when they played The Powerstation in Auckland.
Supported by British hip hop pioneer Derek B and Brooklynite DJ Scratch, the show was attended by many of the characters who would shape the first wave of Aotearoa hip hop.
This is the story of how Run-D.M.C.’s one-night-only appearance altered the course of rap music in this country.
Kerry Buchanan – Critic, Music Writer
Run-D.M.C. were the first rap act to break into the white charts using a white rock classic – you know, Aerosmith ‘Walk This Way’. And the other thing that made them huge was being played on MTV, which was still… I’m not going to call it racism, but there was a definite bias towards white pop, and Run-D.M.C. being a black face on MTV I think was very important.
DJ Sirvere – Mai FM Content Director
“The Powerstation Run-D.M.C. gig’s a bit like when ‘E Tu’ dropped, when Scribe took the stage at the 2001 Hip Hop Summit, and everyone goes, ‘Man, I wish I had have been there!’ This was just one of those things I feel quite special that I was actually in the building at that time.”
Oscar Kightley – Writer, Actor, Broadcaster
“This was at a time in New Zealand… actually, I remember the commercials. When radio stations that played mainly Eurocentric ads where they would say, ‘No rap, no crap’. That was the climate of the time.”
DJ Rhys B – First New Zealand DMC DJ Champion
“[Derek B] had DJ Scratch DJing for him and he did all his routines from the New Music Seminar Battle. We’re talking about the times before the internet. There were limited scratch videos, so you could hear the scratches on record but you couldn’t actually see them. But when he came you could actually see what he was doing and his manipulation of the crossfader and the records … After that it was all on for me – I was in DJ battles from then on for the next bloody 13 years or something.”
Kerry Buchanan
“I cannot remember what they came on with – it might have been ‘Run’s House’, I don’t know. I have no idea of the flow of the music at all – but nearly everything they played were hits.”
Nick D’Angelo – ex-bFM Broadcaster, Hip Hop Promoter
“I wanted to get backstage. I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’m from [bFM] that’s putting this on and I’ve done all this work’. No, I couldn’t get backstage, didn’t have the right laminate. Low and behold, a few weeks later, I see these photos of Upper Hutt Posse with the guys from Run-D.M.C.. And so, yeah, I guess they had the mana.”
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| Run-D.M.C. with Upper Hutt Posse (L-to-R: DJ Run, D.M.C, DLT, Rhys B, Tee Pee, D Word) Photo: Courtesy of Rhys B |
DJ Sirvere
“You have to understand, I’m a young man who’s a huge hip hop fan, been influenced by this band since the day I touched the culture – and then to see them live, it was just a bit much. These are really important moments in ourselves as human beings. Like, I’m not seeing Ghandi for the first time, but it’s kind of like that because I had put it on it. I had made it that important so it just became that important.”
Oscar Kightley
“I had a Valiant Ranger at the time and after the gig I was on such a high and I was so happy, and then I got back to my Valiant and someone had ripped the stereo – ’cause this was in the days when stereos were getting stolen a lot – but even that didn’t sour my experience enough to ruin it for me.”
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