Tāmaki Makaurau band Bub released their debut album, Can’t Even, on Thursday evening at Neck of The Woods on Karangahape Road – featuring a couple of stand-out songs, a loving crowd and some star guests.
At the end of their set, Bub had already played all the songs on the album, but the crowd wouldn’t let up with their cheering. “I guess we could play ‘New Amsterdam’ again,” wondered frontwoman and songwriter Priya Sami. But how to make it new the second time around? She cajoled a very special guest from the crowd, a friend called Steph, with the incredible ability to imitate the sound of a cowbell with her mouth (“mouthbell” according to Sami) for the entirety of the song.
Bub is Sami’s project, with songs written by her and performed by an ever-shifting band. She has, for a few years, used it a vehicle to sing heartbreak anthems with touches of new wave, post punk, doo wop, this and that around Auckland’s indie gig scene. She’s become known as a “powerhouse vocalist” with “emotionally shattering” lyrics. The album, Can’t Even, has been a long time in the making. The song that started it all, ‘King of Wands’, was released in 2019. Now, 10 songs are etched into purple vinyl for those with players and uploaded to Spotify for everyone else.
To celebrate its release, Sami was joined by Daniel Barrett on bass (“my ride or die”), her older sister Anji Sami (of She’s So Rad and obviously The Sami Sisters) on backup vocals who stood about 5cm from the edge of the stage and looked like she’d rather be in the crowd, Ruby Walsh and their various hand-held percussion instruments hiding at the back of the stage, David Harris in a cloud of smoke on the drums and Joe Kaptein making his way around three synthesizers. The band shared the stage with guests that popped on for certain songs and super-sized hand-made cardboard decorations – a giant sun, legions of clouds, an apple tree and sunflowers on every amp and foldback.
The incredible guest line-up started with Sami’s high school jazz teacher, Edwina Thorne, on the trumpet for a song Sami first wrote in high school and has now re-vamped, ‘Mrs Julian Casablancas’. Thorne, in a sequinned top, had her time to shine during a solo and nailed it, hip thrusting and all. “She looks the same as 20 years ago,” said Sami. “So hot!” Sami is known almost as much for her hilarious and self-deprecating stage banter as her musicality. While beloved, the banter has in the past undercut, or distracted from the emotional impact of the songs. In the 2025 version of ‘Mrs Julian Casablancas’, Sami has found a way to bring her comedic genius in. Deep inside the nostalgic pop tune, she breaks into a sort of soliloquy. “Dearest Julian, it’s been nearly 20 years! And that’s a really long time to ignore someone lol.” The love letter to Jiulian Casablancas, heart throb of every indie girl in the mid-2000s dances around the “Not Like Other Girls” trope and problematic age gaps. Sami sent it home with a cheeky smile and the line “If you could just reply to my email that would be really cool.”
The other stand-out song was ‘Another Girl’. Anji Sami, somewhat teasing her sister, accurately described it as “the angry dark one”. It is angry and dark, and while all Bub songs feel emotionally tuned in, this one digs deeper. For ‘Another Girl’, five more vocalists, “my coven” joined Sami. Among them was Princess Chelsea and Skilaa’s Chelsea Prastiti, another powerhouse. It was in the layering of the vocalists, divided into high, medium and low notes over the stage and microphones that the song got its power. It built and built and yet was carefully restrained by what felt like a skilled light hand. For parts of it, Sami stepped back and let her coven sing “burn out hollow girl burn out” and “for you, fuck you”. I was so struck by the song I asked Sami, loitering near the merch table, its name on my way out. She told me it’s the next single, expected to be released with a video on May 16.
Right after the second performance of ‘New Amsterdam’, a little crowd gathered around Sami – people who wanted hugs, photos and their brand new records signed. But then they cleared out quickly, despite there being one more act, a very casual “DJ Uncle Spicy” playing 90s and 00s pop music. It was a Thursday night and the clock was approaching midnight. Unlike most gigs the air did not smell like beer and no one’s eyes were glassy. Instead they headed home, many carrying shrink-wrapped records with Sami’s face on them, and that is how the first few copies of Bub’s debut album made their way into the world.
