Back in November 2024, Shihad made the announcement that after nearly four decades at the forefront of New Zealand’s rock scene, it was time for their final weekend.
To mark the moment, we wanted to take you along for the ride.
The Rock Presents: Shihad’s Last Supper is a short-doco, following The Morning Rumble’s Bryce Casey as we head down to Wellington to catch Shihad’s last-ever shows, and to celebrate the legacy they leave behind.
Shihad say the decision to step away was all about doing it right.
“Shihad’s something you need to do 100%, all the time, and life has changed for all of us,” says frontman Jon Toogood.
“And life has changed for, I think, all of us,” says drummer Tom Larkin. “We decided it's best to leave it in good shape.”
And in good shape they were.
Our camera-crew-of-two followed Bryce down to Wellington in March this year for Homegrown 2025 - which was set to be the band’s final performance ever - back where it began in their hometown.
It was a full-circle moment for Bryce, being a lifelong fan who first saw them in a tiny club in Wellington as a teenager.
From sweat-soaked clubs in Wellington to the main stage of Big Day Out, the band’s electrifying presence and relentless energy became legendary in the New Zealand rock scene.
“I remember being honestly, completely starstruck when I first got to meet them, even for the first few times that they came to The Rock,” says Bryce, adding that he was a “massive fanboy” and thought they were “the coolest dudes in the world.”
“Shihad are like a bit of furniture at The Rock. They’re family. They've just always been here… They’re part of us.”
Our doco gives you a glimpse into the chaotic, emotional and energetic that the final weekend of Shihad held.
Bryce not only managed to catch the Shihad lads 20-minutes before their Homegrown performance, but he also caught up with fellow-kiwi-musicians Troy Kingi, Alien Weaponry’s Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds, and Blindspott’s Shelton Woolright.
After tearing it up at the Rock stage at Homegrown, Toogood announced onstage that they weren’t done just yet…
…They had one final show left in them.
The next night, they played a last-minute final, final show at Wellington’s Meow Nui - and of course, we stuck around to capture it.
The band tore through Churn and Killjoy in full, before taking requests from the floor. It goes without saying that the energy in the room was electric, the punters were on form. For one fan, Shihad’s final gig marked the 106th show she’d been to of theirs. Wild. And of course, before closing the curtain forever, Shihad performed Home Again - which we’ve left in full for you to enjoy at the end of the doco.
From all of us here at The Rock - thank you Shihad. You did it right. You did it loud. And you did it your way.
Go crank Shihad’s Last Supper up top.
