It’s been a year since I last saw Dragon. (Dragon these days being: founding member Todd Hunter (bass), front man singer-guitarist Mark Williams, guitarist Bruce Reid and drummer Pete Drummond.) In reality, the March 2017 show was only half a show as it was an all-Kiwi event with Mi-Sex doing the second half of that show.

On Friday night Dragon did 2 sets. Mark (above) excelled as front man in this show: his engagement with the crowd and his charisma stunning: his singing first class. Todd was seated; making Bruce and Pete much more to the fore in this tight performance.

The crowd were so responsive. On three occasions they erupted. An eruption was brewing as the band teased with some of the notes for April Sun in Cuba embedded into the end of Sunshine. Yes, the first eruption was April Sun: the second Rain and the third Are You Old Enough. Actually, they played Rain twice for maximum audience participation. The first time Mark gave the crowd line prompts; the second he just gave gestures as reminders as the crowd sang and sang.

Recently I read that when Todd re-formed the band just over 12 years ago, they played a few acoustic shows but the crowd sang so loudly the musicians couldn’t hear themselves, hence the need to go electric.

The venue on Friday night had great lighting but we weren’t there to see that. Shame that the sound quality wasn’t as spectacular. In fact the sound quality was crap.