February 2007

Nz Musician Magazine Article On-line

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Fun In Whakatane

On February 10th the band had a great time playing at the Whakatane Summer Arts Festival in the beautiful Rose Gardens in Whakatane. What a great event! The weather held off and the gardens were full with about 1500 people with blankets and picnic hampers who danced and partied and had a good time.

Because Sonia is now on maternity leave (she was in the crowd with her and Grant's kids) the band were joined for the very first time - for a full gig at least, he played at the 15th Anniversary concert - by keyboard wiz Liam Ryan (ex-Narc, now of the band Torch Songs - unfortunately, you can't see him in any of the pictures!). We also had Ian "Beano" Gilpin providing solid support on drums.

And it was another immensely enjoyable evening! The band kicked off at 5.00pm and mixed things up, with a few Self-Righteous Brothers songs from Derek and Nigel and a couple of old blues tunes from Derek and Grant. Liam played fantastically throughout the gig and amazed everyone afresh with his astonishing skill. Songs like To Be Or What took on a totally new dimension and became long grooving jams - it was exciting to hear the songs spontaneously transforming!

 By the end of the night the entire crowd (it seemed) was dancing, and the band played a couple of rousing encores, finishing with a huge crowd sing-a-long of You Are My Sunshine, before the sun sank behind the trees and everyone headed home happy.

The band would like to offer special thanks to Liam for stepping into the breach, and to the "Nashi Man" who turned up - as he has at many past Jazz Festivals in Tauranga - to give the band a crate of the best-tasting nashis they've ever come across. Thanks!

For those interested in such things, the entire set for the day was: 

FIRST SET

DIDDIE WAH DIDDIE (Blake)

SONG FOR BROOK (ANGELS) (Jacombs)

EASY RIDER (trad)

SMOKY BLUES TOWN (Jacombs)

ANY ROAD UP (Jacombs)

DON'T TEMPT ME (Jacombs)

DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANY MORE (Russell / Ellington)

THE BALLAD OF KOWHITERANGI (Masters)

BATON ROUGE (Clark)

PLASTIC JESUS (unknown)

The Waitangi Day Festival

February 6th was Waitangi Day and - for the second year in a row - Kokomo were part of the Waitangi Day Community Festival on the main beach at Mount Maunganui. And, again, it was a fantastic day!

The music kicked off at 11.30am with a Kapahaka group and proceeded through Blues from Peri Kohu and the Blues Busters (fantastic and authentic as always), swing from the Tauranga Big Band, R&B from our friends Brilleaux ("Beano" Gilpin's "other" band), and everything from metal to reggae, funk and acoustic tunes as well as some great breakdancing and Island dancing. Fantastic! And incredibly well organised, running exactly to time despite 180 performers over nearly 8 hours.

It was a beautiful sunny summer day, which was a relief, and then, less than an hour after the concert finished the heaven's opened and tautanga had record rainfall for the next five hours!

This was the first official gig without Sonia - now on maternity leave due to extreme hugeness - but Mike Kirk and "Beano" Gilpin were playing and John Michaelz sang The Working Class Shuffle as a duet with Derek and helped out with percussion and backing vocals on Superheroes.

Kokomo's 25 minute set comprised of:

ANY ROAD UP (Jacombs)

BABY'S GETTING BIGGER (Jacombs / Michaelz)

FREIGHT TRAIN (Terry)

THE WORKING CLASS SHUFFLE (Jacombs / Michaelz)

SUPERHEROES (Jacombs)

Kokomo would like to offer thanks and all kudos to Tim Cooper (guitarist extraordinaire) and all the other folk from Ngaiterangi Iwi who organised this fantastic event - may it go from strength to strength!

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A Return To Kawau Island

Thoughts from Derek

In January the band were chuffed to be invited back to play again on Kawau Island, since we really fell in love with the place when we played there a couple of year’s back.
This time was just as special, and we played for the 80th birthday party of one of the islands senior citizens Bob Fyfe. He has a lovely place up on a clifftop and the gig was on the balcony overlooking the sea, and we took the opportunity to play with the full six-piece line-up with Mike Kirk on electric guitar and Ian “Beano” Gilpin on drums.

The weather cleared for the day and it was a delight to play while looking out at the beautiful blues ocean with the odd large sailing ship that passed transporting us back to how it must have been here in the old days when that mad bastard Governor Grey (who built his mansion on there) used to hare around the island in a buggy drawn by zebras that he imported from Africa. (One of my favourite glimpses of a far more colourful New Zealand history than is usually taught in schools.)

This was due to be Sonia’s last gig before maternity leave (she actually played a couple of songs in Auckland at the beginning of February) and, as you can see from some of the photos in the gallery, she was very pregnant.

The pics here and in the Picture Gallery were all taken by the man who first introduced us to Kawau, Michael Marris (a bit of a dab hand with the old camera), and we wish him our thanks – for the photos and for arranging two very memorable trips. And greeting to all the other good folk on Kawau Island.

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