Six60 have their sights set on bigger gigs

They're about to play the biggest show of their lives but Six60 tell Chris Schulz they have a larger, Ed Sheeran-sized target in their sights

Matiu Walters, Six60's softly spoken front man, unfolds his arms, gazes at the empty stadium around him, and declares: "We know there's bigger than this."

• O-Week: Tradition of memorable music continues

Bigger? He's got to be kidding, because this Saturday night, the five-piece band will play the most important show of their lives in New Zealand's biggest concert venue.

Nearly 50,000 people will cram into Western Springs to see Six60 headline a hand-picked line-up of Kiwi talent - including SWIDT, Sons of Zion and Drax Project - at the largest show any of them have ever played.

The stadium spectacle, which has been sold out since September, will enter the history books as the first time a New Zealand band has filled a venue of this size.

Today, standing with TimeOut inside the empty stadium, the historic moment finally seems to be hitting home for Walters and the band's lead guitarist, Ji Fraser.

"We did Ed Sheeran, which was 25,000," says Fraser, gazing up to the rising concrete terraces at the back. "I'm trying to think what double that looks like."

He pauses, and shakes his head: "This is 30,000 bigger than Rhythm & Vines."

Walters gazes over to a couple of diggers clearing space for their stage. "We have no experience walking out to that many people," he says.

He thumps his chest with his hand: "Your heart might go nuts, get an adrenaline dump [and] be a bit shaky at the beginning ... just talking about it puts it in perspective."

To most bands, selling out Western Springs would be the peak of their careers, the moment they officially stepped up into the rarefied air of rock's elite.

Only a handful of international acts are capable of pulling a crowd of 50,000 to Western Springs, with Eminem the last to do it in 2014.

So no one would blame Six60, who evolved from a jam band in a Dunedin flat into a radio-hogging, chart-topping juggernaut, for putting their hands behind their heads, leaning back in their chairs and saying: "We made it."

But they're not. Despite the historic occasion, they refuse to look at Saturday's show as anything more than a "stepping stone".

"You can't look at any moment as the pinnacle," says Fraser. "Who knows what we can do?"

He references Ed Sheeran's record-breaking run of six shows - three in Auckland, and three in Dunedin - and says: "Maybe we can do three of them."

You wouldn't bet against them, especially when they start pointing out how much has changed for New Zealand bands since Six60 started in 2010. "When we were coming up, no New Zealand band was allowed to do Vector [now Spark] Arena," says Fraser.

Walters: "There's no reason why international [bands] can come here and pull New Zealanders, but New Zealand bands can't. All that is, is the perception about what New Zealand music actually is. I'm pretty keen to change that and I think we're doing a pretty good job."

Fraser: "Now, a kid knows they can do ... this," he says, sweeping his arm around the venue. "They can sell out Western Springs. Above all else, that's really important."