Kelly Meharg leans back into 2012 her and heads to Synthony – but will her third time be the charm? Here’s her full Synthony review – AND a sneak peek at a jazzy new phone feature that might save your sanity in 2027.
I’m looking at a gorgeous woman, probably in her 40s, sway to the thuds of Avicii’s Levels, a RTD in hand (a Mānuka Phuel Remixed RTD, ofc) her eyes shut as a huge grin spreads across her face.
I just know that she’s remembering a moment, probably from about 2012, before kids, mortgages, actual responsibilities and the heaviness of the world right now. She’s probably on a dance floor in a dark, sticky club, wearing a little bandage dress she picked up at Dotti, trying her best to dance in those ridiculous platform heels we used to wear (the key was to stand still and just kind of sway your hips, from memory). She’s happy. She’s free. Her quiff won’t quit.
And for a few hours or so on a beautiful March night in Auckland in 2026, she’s back, baby. Minus the dress and heels – tonight, as if we all agreed collectively, it’s denim, white sneakers and a jazzy wee top that only comes out for ‘fun’ nights.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you would have known that over the weekend the Mānuka Phuel Synthony Festival once again hit Auckland’s Domain, with 40,000 revellers gathering to scream the lyrics to the best of 2010’s dance floor bangers, set against a full orchestra.
For us millennial and Gen X gals, Synthony isn’t just a one-day festival – it’s like stepping back into a memory.
What is Synthony, and what was it like this year?
At its most basic level, Synthony is easy to explain. It’s a one-day festival built around a live orchestra performing reimagined dance music alongside a lineup that this year included acts such as Faithless, Peking Duk, Shapeshifter, The Exponents, and Kaylee Bell. The centrepiece was Synthony No.7, a sweeping orchestral set that threaded together decades of dance anthems – think Levels, Children, Sandstorm, Call on Me, Sweet Nothing and Superstylin. These huge EDM hits have been reworked to be played by the Auckland Philharmonia and the result is moving, heaving, beautiful nostalgia, alongside hearing old favourites played in new ways.
But describing it like that almost misses the point – what I’ve come to understand is what actually unfolds over the course of the day is less about performance and more about nostalgia and belonging – and about what happens when music you have carried with you for years is played back to you in that completely different form.
Synthony is always a vibe – this is my third year going and I’ll hand on heart say that this was the best one yet. On a practical note it was super-well organised – no huge lines for the bar, food or toilets, despite 40,000 bodies cramming into the domain – and the whole line up was incredibly well-received, Synthony’s setlist was absolutely epic and, in my opinion, a huge step up from last year (more big hits, and this year, crucially, you could hear the orchestra far more than the synth).
Sparks flew out of a saxaphone during Levels, for God’s sake. For some reason, during the performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (that’s right, they bring out some classical stuff every now and then and I was jazzed that I actually knew the title of it, sign me up to a Believe It or Not pub quiz stat) there was a cannon!? Where the hell did we did a cannon from? The lights and lasers and visuals were sublime, and the sound pumping.
As a small treat for me, the orchestra even played a niiiiiche song from my favourite band, Odesza, which almost had me in tears because I have never heard any of their songs live before and because I’d had a couple of the new Mānuka Phuel RTD’s, I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
As an aside, some exciting news for next year’s festival (well, next year’s everything, actually). I had a jazzy experience whilst in the throngs of people – a phone that could message out, despite the huge crowd. 5G+ is coming to Spark next year – it’s basically a VIP lane at events that lets you live stream, message and call using data. I had a special phone that was enabled with this and it was a real thrill to one, be able to message my husband gloating ‘wish you were here!’ messages when the Black Seeds were on and two, fire through video snippets when no one else’s phone was working. (This is coming later this year, so if you’re always out and about with large crowds, this baby is for you).
Nostalgia Reigns Supreme at Synthony
On a wider level, there’s something that happens to the crowd at Synthony when these bangers come on and we’re all happily thrown back in time to when we first heard them – and honestly the closest thing I can compare it to is therapy.
Everywhere I looked it seemed as though people were almost having religious experiences with these songs – even me personally because for some reason Levels gets me in the bloody feels every single time, which is why I’d love it if Kmart stopped using it in their ads, thank you so much. It’s a very specific kind of emotional experience – somewhere between pure joy, freedom (babysitters, baby!), relief and even a tiny bit of grief that we simply can’t go back to a time when life was so much simpler.
Nostalgia has always been part of festival culture, but right now it feels different – a little sharper, and most definitely more necessary. In a world that feels increasingly unstable (economically, politically, emotionally et all) the past has become a place people return to not just for fun, but for grounding – the familiar music, the familiar lyrics, the familiar feelings. It’s not because we want to go backwards, but because for the love of God, we need somewhere steady to stand.
Synthony leans all the way into that. These aren’t just old tracks replayed for a quick dopamine hit, they’re reworked, expanded and incredibly elevated by the full orchestra, transforming songs that once lived in clubs into something closer to a collective, almost spiritual experience – and trust me, the crowd reflected that!
This wasn’t the chaotic, hyper-youthful energy of the old 2am dance floor – God can you IMAGINE that these days!? No, it’s something softer and kinder – groups of women who have clearly known each other for years, wearing outfits that prioritise comfort as much as style. It was people sitting on picnic rugs between sets, refilling drinks, checking phones for messages from babysitters – but then, suddenly, they’re on their feet again screaming lyrics, arms around each other and completely back in it.
And that’s where Synthony becomes something else entirely. For a lot of women in the crowd, this wasn’t just a night out. It becomes this rare moment of reclamation and a chance to step back into a version of themselves that existed before careers took off, before relationships got complicated and kids changed everything.
Simply put, it’s a vibe where us old(ish) gals feel at home and free – so hell yes, I’ll be back next year.
