Noise from Six60 gig prompt complaints as music echoes across Christchurch

Six60’s stadium tour may have reached a bigger audience than intended, as noise complaints about the band’s recent Christchurch show rolled in from across the city.

The concert, held at Orangetheory Stadium in Addington on Saturday, was the penultimate stop on a tour that began in October at Wellington’s Sky Stadium and will wrap up at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium in March.

The tour has been billed as “the first time any artist has embarked on a 100% stadium tour throughout all of New Zealand”. On Saturday, gates opened at 5pm, with four supporting bands taking the stage before the main act.

But some people not at the event felt they were on the receiving end of an unwanted gig, with dozens of complaints made to the Christchurch City Council.

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The council’s acting head of regulatory compliance, Shane Bruyns, said there were 65 complaints made on the night and nine others received subsequently.

Bruyns said the complaints were followed up at the time, and noise levels “complied with the District Plan levels for concerts at this venue”.

The maximum sound level for concerts at Orangetheory Stadium is 85 decibels equivalent continuous level, and concerts are permitted until 11pm on Saturdays, he said.

Ray Hunt said he had lived in his Cashmere Hills home – about 5km from the stadium – for 35 years, but had never experienced anything that loud and that late in “all his years of living there”.

Hunt said he had “no objection to there being a rock concert in Christchurch”.

“My objection is that people five or seven kilometres away have to be subjected to it.”

He was forced to prop furniture against walls at his home in Heaton Rhodes Place in an attempt “to stop the walls vibrating from the low frequencies that came through from the concert”.

He was aware of people who had made noise complaints to the council, but also of a number who didn’t bother.

“I spoke to an elderly couple who live up on Dyers Pass Rd. He’s 90 and she’s in her 80s, and she said she could hear every word of the songs, five or six kilometres away.

“She said, ‘There’s no point in complaining – I suppose we just have to put up with this.’ But I don’t agree that you just have to put up with it.

“It’s not the end of the world, but I actually felt very sorry for the elderly people with homes down in Beckenham and the upper end of Colombo St … They all had to be subjected to this thumping noise until 11 o’clock at night.”

A Six60 show at Auckland’s Mt Eden Stadium in April last year also riled neighbours, but the Auckland Council said live monitoring on the night showed no breaches of noise levels.