Oh woe is us – Aucklanders complain in harmony (video)

Complainers from around Auckland converged on the city centre on Sunday to turn modern woes into song.

More than 20 people came together to form the Auckland Complaints Choir, part of a larger international organisation of moaners, to express their troubles in a lighthearted format.

Followed by dozens of onlookers, the choir started out at Freyberg Place by Vulcan Lane, and then moved around to different spots in the city centre that afternoon.

This performance ended more than a week of contemporary art as part of Living Room 09, eight days of creative events in the CBD by local and international artists.

The complaints ranged from the relatively universal troubles of weather, receding hairlines and bad cell phone reception, to more Kiwi-specific woes such as the proposed Super City and the driving habits of Aucklanders.

The choir had a less traditional approach, with guitar accompaniment provided by prominent musician Sean James Donnelly (SJD).

Event organiser Anna Wild said a conduit on the Complaints Choir website was set up for people to vent their frustration. After five pages of complaints were collated, they were sent to SJD to compose a song.

Then it was a matter of getting people together and practising, which took place over a few weeks before the big day.

One of the choir members, Rebecca Daniel, joined a week prior to the performance on Sunday at the advice of a music teacher friend.

She says everyone was welcoming and there has been talk of recording the performance.

“It could be a YouTube hit,” she says.

The Complaints Choir was established in 2005 by Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, and different chapters have performed in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, America and the Middle East.