June 2008

Nigel's Adventures In Gore

Part 1: getting there.

We flew out of Tauranga on Tuesday 27th May, arrived in Chch & loitered before boarding the Invercargill flight, arriving in Invercargill at about 1:30pm to be greeted by a change in air temp & our driver, Barbara, who despite bringing her largest vehicle – the dreaded Mitsubishi Pajero – was amazed to find, as any double bass player would know, that getting a flight-cased double bass in the back of one of these suburban assault vehicles was no simple task. Large vehicle, not a lot of room!

This was all very exciting for me as, although Shona has been pretty much everywhere, this was the furthermost south I’d been, having only got as far as Dunedin in the eighties. More on this later.

Fifty minutes drive to Gore through fab countryside, straight to the Hotel Croyden Lodge & pretty much straight to the mini bar for the rest of the day. We managed to drain two mini bars that day which could have almost sunk the tour. We did, however, decide partying heavily on the first day was a bad plan & vowed not to do this again unless the fees became so large as to force us to do it for tax reasons.

Wednesday morning wasn’t great but Shona was booked to be guest speaker at an all-day songwriters workshop in town. We reported for duty about 9:45am and met the cast & crew. Mike Mahoney, the well respected Dunedinite, ran the morning session, inspiring the 50 or so gathered to write & think creatively & handing out ideas & tips that even experienced writers would appreciate revisiting from time to time.
Shona took the podium after lunch & delivered an engaging (the newspaper review said “animated” although this may have been stretching things) & insightful address.

Having conquered the seminar, we trotted off back to the hotel to await the arrival of folk guitar-playing legend, James Wilkinson, flying in from Chch. We expected him to be there to greet us upon our return & quickly realized that the festival had forgotten to collect him from Invercargill airport.
After a number of phone calls, including one to James’ cell phone, we had a chauffeur dispatched to retrieve said guitar player. James, having waited a couple of hours at the airport had made friends with the café girls, the cleaner, the carpark manager, various aircrew including an enthusiastic young hostess, & a number of locals, all of whom must have thought he was lost or boarded the wrong plane in the first place.

Part 2: Showtime.

Thursday was the first show: Shona & Sparrowband were booked to play a short set at the Gold Guitars Songwriter Awards evening, held at the Gore Country Music clubrooms. The idea was that all 14 finalists would perform their songs & Shona & band would perform whilst the judging was carried out backstage.
Upon arriving at the gig we were greeted by an ambulance crew who were scraping the backing band’s drummer off the floor & carting him away as he’d had a seizure & collapsed. This created the problem of finding a drummer for the night with 15 minutes notice. In true showbiz manner a retired drummer was urged forward & the show got underway.
The show consisted of 10 singer/songwriters' works performed in the first half & 4 songs in the second half followed by Shona & the Sparrowband.
Shona’s set was (from memory): "Fact", "Caught", "Duration", "My Love be Still" (M.Tocker) & "Taihoe", a short set indeed but greeted enthusiastically by the assembled audience & recorded by Radio New Zealand for use in a future programme about the Gold Guitar Awards.

The winning entry, a song that seemed to tickle James’ fancy, was “I could have Died Tonight” by Andrea Criukshank & Lisa Cruikshank-Urlich. Pretty much a Nashville-styled modern country love song which may not have had all the serious lyricists present yelling for more, however, the girls did perform the song beautifully & were presented with the award by none other than Shona Laing. I’m sure they will go onto great things.

Friday was a more leisurely day for Shona & the Sparrows, taking in the local cafes & some of the local history including a visit to the art gallery to see the Ralph Hotere exhibition in particular & visiting the museum to find that the entire district was founded on sly grogging & moonshine whiskey in the best tradition of the rugged Scots who were responsible for European civilization in the south.
More than this, the Friday night concert was set to be a larger affair set in the Calvin Chapel, a large auditorium style theatre. This was where the Tui Awards for Best Country Song & Best Country Album would be bestowed.

We soundchecked at 3:00pm & met up with many old friends including The Cattlestops from Wellington, one of whom, Dave Berry, I had toured with in The Puppettz back in the 1980’s. It was a who’s who of musicality & once again Trevor Reekie was there with his RNZ crew to record the event.
Once again, the first half of the evening was the showcase for all entries, the second half was commenced with a full 50 minute set from Shona & Sparrowband.
The set (once again from memory) ran something like, "Should Have Been For You", "Mahatma's Army", "Caught", "White Water", "Duration", "Kennedy", "Taihoe", "Waitakere Rain", "Soviet Snow", "My Love Be Still", & "Comfort". Even if I do say so, Shona & the Sparrows were fab & endured many favorable comments afterwards.

And the winners of the 2008 Tuis in the country section were: Melissa Partridge with her self-titled album, and Melissa & Bruce Dennis from Hamilton (who was playing in Rotorua that night & wasn’t able to attend) for his song “Ain’t Gonna Run”.
As it turned out, Derek was in Rotorua that evening & bumped into Bruce & no doubt had a celebratory drink or two.

So, our work done, we retreatd to the hotel for all night drinkies, waved goodbye to James at 5:30am as he was headed back to Chch for two gigs later that day & headed out to the airport for the midday flight to Wellington.
The only remaining excitement was having the Prime Minister & her armed bodyguard board the plane at Wellington. We all arrived safely back in the Bay of Plenty, thinking that Southern Hospitality is indeed something to be sought out but with an underlying sense of relief that thermal underwear is not something normally required in the more northern climes.

I Can’t wait till next time.
Cheers,
Nigel St-John-Mollusce

 —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —

651 Crawford Rd, RD1, Tauranga 3171
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 7 578 9578
E-mail: info@kokomo.co.nz  —  URL: http://www.kokomo.co.nz
Website and Content © Kokomo 1999 - 2010  —  Legal Stuff / Privacy Policy