Embrace the chaos _{by Madelaine Empson}

Eyegum Music Collective is about to throw one heck of a party that marks a full-circle moment for the Te Whanganui-a-Tara community music and arts organisation. Back in 2014, Eyegum formed to put on gigs in unorthodox spaces in response to the closure of many of the capital’s favourite establishments. More than 10 years on, their music and arts festival Great Sounds Great celebrates the city’s amazing artists and music venues – once in critically short supply and now more vital than ever – in one breath.

Great Sounds Great will take over Cuba Street Precinct on the 6^th of September. 40 of Aotearoa’s best – from Anthonie Tonnon, Hans Pucket, and Jazmine Mary to Louisa Nicklin, The Phoenix Foundation, and Reb Fountain – will join forces with up-and-coming artists to play 10 neighbouring venues stretching from Valhalla and San Fran to St Peter’s on Willis and Meow. I got the sneak peek from co-curator Ben Jones.

Congrats on 10-plus years of Eyegum! What have been some of the highlights over the years?

Thanks, it’s been a blast and we’ve managed to do and be involved in a lot of different things over that time. There is always serious nostalgia for the near weekly house party gigs that we hosted in the beginning as that environment led to some incredible and intimate performances, including from bands who have gone on to find big success since. We are extremely proud of our other festival, Welcome to Nowhere, which was a massive undertaking, being set in the middle of nowhere over multiple days. It has sadly come to an end but building something like that from scratch and seeing an amazing community grow around it was super special. And then finally bringing Great Sounds Great to life after talking about it for years beforehand, and seeing it be so embraced by audiences has been an incredible recent highlight. Not to mention getting to host some old-timey favourites like Goodshirt and Fur Patrol alongside our favourite up-and-coming artists will never get old.

Great Sounds Great sounds great! As both an organiser and an audience member, what are your favourite aspects of the festival?

As an organiser, personally I love putting together a dream lineup of Aotearoa artists, past and present, from a range of seemingly disparate scenes and genres, and then trying our best to bring that to fruition. I feel we’ve done that pretty well so far year-on-year, but I’m especially excited about the programme we’ve managed to curate for 2025. I also get a weird kick out of figuring out how that lineup is going to work on the night – who will play where and when – to try and make sure there’s always something for everyone happening throughout the night. And as an audience member, the best thing is having open access to all these venues and just embracing the chaos, seeing where the night takes you, and ideally getting to see a bunch of artists and performances that you might not normally seek out, alongside your top picks for the festival.