{"id":536774,"date":"2026-07-21T11:24:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/536774\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T11:24:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:24:23","slug":"dale-kerrigan-watch-dunedin-bands-china-tour-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/536774\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Kerrigan: Watch Dunedin Band’s China Tour Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we put together our year-end New Zealand albums list for 2025, much of the top 10 sorted itself out. Marlon Williams? Of course. The Beths? Naturally. I think it would have been a New Zealand criminal offence to have Lorde and Virgin lower than 10.<\/p>\n

Nestled amongst the more established names, at No. 6, was Dale Kerrigan, whose HEAVY GREASY album fully deserved to compete with the best Kiwi releases of last year.<\/p>\n

Because in a just world \u2014 a more just music industry \u2014 Dale Kerrigan would be as well-known as Dick Move or The Beths or any number of \u2018bigger\u2019 local bands.<\/p>\n

Alongside the likes of Pearly* and the 4EPs bands<\/a>, Dale Kerrigan are one of the bands making \u014ctepoti Dunedin\u2019s music scene so exciting in the middle of the 2020s.<\/p>\n

They are Shlee Nicholls, Josh Nicholls, Connor Blackie, and Joel Field, who all orbit a variety of different musical projects in the Otago city, but come together to do some of their finest work as Dale Kerrigan.<\/p>\n

In the same year HEAVY GREASY dropped, they became the latest Kiwi act to tour China, under the impressive guidance of Kristen Ng: originally from P\u014dneke Wellington but now based in Chengdu, China, Kristen started the well-received multimedia blog Kiwese<\/a> just over a decade ago, using it to promote independent music and culture across both China and Aotearoa. Two years later, in 2015, Kiwese expanded into a touring label for Kiwi acts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since that year Kristen has, in addition to Dale Kerrigan, organised Chinese tours for Orchestra of Spheres, Lady Lazer Light, All Seeing Hand, E\/N\/T, Alphabethead, mr sterile Assembly, Strange Stains, Womb, BIRDPARTY, Vera Ellen, and Flesh Bug. Dale Kerrigan\u2019s fellow Dunedin band, DIY duo Night Lunch, were the latest Kiwi act to embark on a tour of China through Kristen (read about their experience here<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Love Music?<\/p>\n

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\u201cI wanna give a big shout out to Kristen for organising our tour! Going to China was life-changing for all of us and we haven\u2019t shut up about it since we got back,\u201d Dale Kerrigan guitarist Joel Field tells me. He also plays in Pearly*, who recently featured in our Future of Music 2026 series<\/a> and also enjoyed an excellent year in 2025.<\/p>\n

Field decided to capture the experience in a feature-length, fly-on-the-wall documentary. The title, Amps for Everyone, paraphrases the title of the closing track on HEAVY GREASY, which was a bit of a mission statement for the noise-rock band (a snippet of the track opens the documentary).<\/p>\n

Their latest album acts as the perfect soundtrack for the documentary, which was filmed over the course of their month-long stay in China, where Dale Kerrigan played in nine cities with a population exceeding that of their homeland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe footage was almost lost for a long time, at one point I thought I\u2019d never see it again, but thankfully after Night Lunch got done with their trip Kristen had a good look and found it,\u201d Field says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project was eye-opening to me as I really fell in love with the process while making it. I was reminded how excited I was while over there filming, and how much I cared about documenting the trip right. This kind of documentary is something I will definitely do again for future tours!\u201d<\/p>\n

HEAVY GREASY by Dale Kerrigan<\/a><\/p>\n

The guitarist adds: \u201cIn a media landscape that so rewards visual content I think a lot of musicians end up making artistic compromises, resorting to skits and reels to get picked up by the algorithm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel very strongly that you shouldn\u2019t have to do that. \u2018Amps for Everyone\u2019 was me trying to approach visual content in a way that felt more similar to making a record.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want it to represent who we are, or at least my take on who Dale Kerrigan is, and I think this film does that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the full documentary on YouTube above, and check out a selection of photos from the tour below.<\/p>\n

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Credit: Caitlin Bathgate<\/p>\n

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Credit: Caitlin Bathgate<\/p>\n

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Credit: Caitlin Bathgate<\/p>\n

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Credit: Caitlin Bathgate<\/p>\n

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Credit: Caitlin Bathgate<\/p>\n

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Credit: Caitlin Bathgate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When we put together our year-end New Zealand albums list for 2025, much of the top 10 sorted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[264454,607,264455,264456,264457,264458,264459,6788,264460,111,43,139,69,113045],"class_list":["post-536774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amps-for-everyone","tag-china","tag-dale-kerrigan","tag-dale-kerrigan-china-tour","tag-dale-kerrigan-documentary","tag-dale-kerrigan-interview","tag-dale-kerrigan-music","tag-dunedin","tag-joel-field","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-scene-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}