A symphony of Synthonies

The wildly popular local music festival has gone global

Kia ora and welcome to The Weekend. This week, I fell off my bike in Grey Lynn – I have only myself to blame, but busy road traffic while trying to pick myself up made me think about how much more relaxing it would have been if I’d been in a cycle lane. Yes, this newsletter is beating the “please can our cities be designed in a way that makes safe travel easier” drum again. I might have some exciting bruises, but there’s lots of other stories to accompany your Coffee Supreme: the winner of Celebrity Treasure Island, a nostalgic music festival with an orchestra (cool!) and reflections on how being Asian changes how — and who — you date.

-Shanti Mathias, staff writer

Bangers, but with an orchestra

Would you pay to see some of your favourite songs from the 90s and early 2000s performed … with an orchestra? For 20,000 people, the answer is yes: the wildly popular festival Synthony is on April 1 in Auckland’s Domain. But the creators of the music festival have taken their show on the road; it toured Australia and Singapore and a Las Vegas residency is on the cards. Festival obsessive Chris Schulz talks to Synthony’s promoter about why the format is so beloved — the “nostagic bangers” certainly help.

Introducing, the Coffee Supreme Iced Coffee range. Roasted for flavour, cold-brewed for taste and canned for convenience —good times by the can are here. Perfect for those rushed mornings, sunny arvos or when you’re packing the chilly bin. Available online by the 4-pack now or by the can at your local cafe who uses Supreme. Grab yours.

Matty McLean never thought he’d make it this far

For those who have been gripped by the drama on Celebrity Treasure Island, five weeks of tension has culminated in a winner: Breakfast presenter Matty McLean found the $50,000 treasure to donate to his chosen charity in the intense final episode. “It feels surreal,” he tells The Spinoff’s podcast The Real Pod, which has been reacting to (and competing in!) this season of the show. He had to be conniving, he had to pick his friends wisely, and ultimately, he stands by everything he did to find the treasure.

Street improvements could transform Auckland’s Inner West

Another week, another litany of “Auckland Transport fails to perform its basic function” stories. Tommy de Silva writes about the overwhelming community support for street improvements in the suburbs of Point Chevalier, Westmere and Grey Lynn, including crucial work to stop thoroughfare Meola Road from literally sinking. It’s particularly important for kids in the region, lots of whom cycle to school. “We can’t wait for a tragedy to happen before we start valuing and prioritising the lives of students and our community,” said student Radha Patel in 2022. Despite this wide support for the improvements, work has stalled, meaning dangerous roads remain in place.

• Why do some Auckland Transport employees hate cyclists? For that matter, why does it hate people using its services?

Big thanks to those members who helped us celebrate the premiere of our new documentary, Elements of Truth, in Wellington last week. It was an amazing evening and wouldn't have been possible without your support.

If you’re not a Spinoff member yet, join today to gain access to exclusive events like this along with a world news version of The Bulletin and heaps more. Better yet, every contribution exclusively funds our journalism and helps keep The Spinoff freely available to all. Find out more here.

Where are the key figures of the 2022 parliament protest now?

The occupation of parliament grounds by a group of people linked by conspiracy media and resistance to vaccine mandates came to an end a year ago. When vaccine mandates were removed a few months later, the force that had linked these groups seemed to dissipate. Toby Manhire looks at what leaders of the movement, including Voices for Freedom, Convoy NZ, Chantelle Baker and Billy Te Kahika have been involved in over the last year. Chantelle Baker went on to spread pro-Russia messages in Ukraine, Liz Gunn rallied for the “Baby W” case regarding unvaccinated blood donations, Counterspin has started supplying content to US-based Infowars and Brian Tamaki was last seen saying that pornography use in Gisborne and Hawkes Bay caused the disastrous effects of Cyclone Gabrielle.

Race is inevitably part of all relationships

Watching Re: News’s just-released web series, Dating While Asian, felt familiar to writer Naomii Seah. In this reflective piece, she remembers the moment a partner didn’t want to understand why red bean mooncakes, eaten to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival, were important to her. Just like some of the people featured in the web series, Seah realises that ethnicity inevitably factored into her relationships. “Shedding my Asianness was like trying to separate breath from lungs. Really, it was my Pākehā mannerisms and behaviours that I’d put on like a suit whenever I was invited to my partners’ family dinners, barbecues or homes,” she writes.

Everything else

• Need an idea of what to watch this weekend? Here’s everything new coming to streaming platforms this month

• Are awards for adults completely made up? (this is a leading question)

• Census night is March 7 – Here’s everything you need to know

• Letting trash be art could be revolutionary when we’re used to throwaway consumption

• Why women make good spies – and an insight into the MI5 recruitment process from someone who wasn’t selected, and gladly so

• An in-depth analysis of John Hughes’ plagiarism and the Australian literary scandal more broadly

• This week, the New Zealand media decided that there was a monster truck saga

• “If you have no real way to parse the differences in the products available to you, why wouldn’t you just buy the cheapest acceptable version of everything, especially if you know it will feel hopelessly out of date in six months?”

• It’s not too late to do something about climate change

• Living with your body even while it changes

• How to read a poem, using on a non-randomly selected example

• Rob Campbell has poster’s disease – it’s not fatal but it might cost you your job

• The Fold: a fascinating interview with James Frankham, the publisher of NZ Geographic, on making media with principles

• Banaba Island was stolen from its people. A new art exhibition is a reminder of this history

• A lovely essay about the complex realisation that your favourite food is a class marker

• The Black Caps winning a match by one run was riveting, says Dylan Cleaver. But will the team learn any lessons?

• For the diamond people: I WILL click any link that mentions the Koh-i-Noor, the literal jewel in the crown of the British Empire

• The next Matatini is two years away. What possible new forms could it take? And how did the journey to get there change the life of one performer?

• And finally… what is the best pineapple lump?