In the 1970s and early 1980s the innovative Split Enz had success internationally as well as nationally, with member Neil Finn later continuing with Crowded House.
In 1959, Mabel Howard, Minister of Social Welfare, went to see Johnny Devlin perform at the Christchurch Town Hall, declaring at half-time, "There’s nothing much wrong with rock and roll".
It was an era when vinyl reigned supreme and teenagers queued outside local music and record shops to buy the latest hit singles.
The Fourmyula's "Nature", written by Wayne Mason in 1969, still retains considerable popularity and was voted the top New Zealand song of the last 75 years in 2001.
[5] In Christchurch, Max Merritt and the Meteors played regularly at The Teenage Club, and achieved iconic status in New Zealand with their songs "Get a Haircut" and "C’mon Let’s Go".
The first punk rock bands – including the Suburban Reptiles and the Scavengers – formed in Auckland in the late 1970s and were soon followed by groups in Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin.
[2] With guitarist Alec Bathgate, Knox formed the Tall Dwarfs and, with a rudimentary four-track TEAC tape deck, he began recording various post-punk bands that had cropped up in Dunedin, starting with the Clean.
The New Zealand groups who made up the bulk of the two-day festival's entertainment were less mainstream than Gibb and played rock music.
They followed the Woodstock template closely, including plans for a live album and film, which is how the New York state festival turned a profit.
They chose a rural site with good access to large population centres, arranged trains from Auckland and Wellington, and selected international headline rock acts including Black Sabbath and Sandy Denny.
[7] The 1979 Nambassa Festival, held on a 400-acre farm on Landlyst Rd in Golden Valley, just north of Waihi, drew over 65,000 fans and was a key event for New Zealand's hippie generation.
Organiser Peter Terry was inspired by the groups's traditional lifestyle, self-sufficiency, and lack of exposure to western commercialism.
Peter Terry used the Woodstock model to successfully spin off a feature film and a book from the event, for which a profit of $200,000 was eventually declared.
[13] City of Souls was formed in August 2015 by guitarists Trajan Schwencke and Steve Boag, soon joined by vocalist Richie Simpson.
[14] Formed in 2010, Alien Weaponry rose to be New Zealand's most successful rock act following the release of their debut album Tū in 2018.