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Bay Of Islands Jazz & Blues Festival - August 2008 |
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A Report From Derek.JPG)
Once again we were really looking forward to the Bay of Islands Festival – there was a pile of good music to check out and we had a new album to launch in Northland.And, once again we had a fantastic weekend! The crowds at all our shows were very good – thanks for coming out everyone! – and with a big contingent of Australian blues players on display there was more than enough interesting music to fill every waking hour of our visit to beautiful Northland.
FRIDAY First thing we did was catch a bit of music at the Haruru Falls Resort, including the exotically-named Pugsly Buzzard, a fine Australian singer and jazz/blues pianist whom Nigel had backed on bass in Auckland the night before the festival. Gotta love Pugsly – helluva player and one of the few people I know who sounds like Tom Waits, without trying to sound like Tom Waits. We kicked off later that night at the Copthorne Resort (top picture) and had a chance to hear another of the various Aussie’s before we started, Mark Easton, also bass player with the James Southwell Band, who played a dynamic set of electric slide blues, sitting behind a drum kit and playing that with his feet while churning out grinding industrial-strength Delta rhythms on the guitar. Great stuff!
ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS (B Dylan)
We got back to Haruru Falls, where we were staying, just in time to catch the final set of the night from a group of music students from Massey in Auckland calling themselves Liquid Colours, who played retro funk and soul and sounded simply sensational – great band, great players! SATURDAY
Saturday we kicked off with an afternoon gig at Haruru Falls, and had a much better time than Friday night. Maybe it just needed one gig to settle the band in. As with the rest of the following weekend gigs we slipped a couple of older tunes into the set and played:
CAT’S IN THE WELL (B Dylan) It was a good gig and an emotional one for us as our friend Henry, who owns Haruru Falls, is very sick and this festival might be the last time we see him. Thank you Henry and Jan for all the many good times. Then we caught Jan Preston (also from Australia, but a Kiwi originally), still playing fantastic boogie woogie piano and working her ass off. She really is good – a fine singer and songwriter who has a real rapport with virtually any audience. Hopefully some time when she’s over again we’ll get the chance to do some more shows with her. That evening we headed over to Russell early – shame not to see it on a sunny afternoon, but it’s still lovely there at night – to have a birthday dinner for Sonia (whose birthday was actually the following Tuesday) with the band and various friends. Mucho fine wine was drunk to lubricate the upcoming gig and a good time was had by all. .jpg) Our set was a slightly odd affair as we were cut off by the soundman (unnecessarily as it happens) before our final song, making for a very short set and something of a feeling of coitus interuptus, as we were just building to our big finale. Rather disappointing after such extensive preparation at dinner! What we did play was:
It was late by the time we got the car ferry back from Russell and if anything else happened that night it’s lost to the mists of excess. But we were up bright and early on... SUNDAY ...as our first gig was at midday at the Paihia Pacific. Pity the guys in Brilleaux who started at 11.00am…
CAT’S IN THE WELL (B Dylan)
After the set we stayed around and caught some more music at the Paihia Pacific,
Sadly, Beano had to head off back to Tauranga before our last gig (he was the driver for Brilleaux), so we decided to mix it up and play a drummerless set of old blues and other spontaneous choices. Since we were the final band in the Cruza Bar there wasn’t really any time constraint, so we jammed out for quite a while and were joined towards the end by Annette (sorry, I can’t remember your surname – damn, that’s not good enough!) on baritone sax and drummer Mike Abbot, both from the fabulous Alibis, which was a whole lot of fun.
STEALIN’ (Trad) Well, that’s about it. Once again, thanks to everyone who turned out for our gigs and helped make the festival so special. And a big thank you to the festival organisers, Shirley May and all the others – you did a magnificent job – we hope to see you again next year. Drop us a line if you were there and have any thoughts on the festival (or anything else). And thanks to Jan Holdem, Sally Garner and David Young who took the photos. All the best
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We had our regular musical compadres from Tauranga joining us, Mike Kirk (left) on electric guitar and Ian “Beano” Gilpin (right) on drums..JPG)
We started with a set of new songs from In The Well:.jpg)
We had some problems with the sound in the venue and it wasn’t the best set we’ve ever played. In fact, everyone had sound difficulties on the Friday at the Copthorne including our mates in Brilleaux who played after us, but they still sounded pretty damn good to me.
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CAT’S IN THE WELL (B Dylan).jpg)
first of which was our old friend from Rotorua Mike Garner, playing splendid original and traditional blues with his very tasty three piece (including our mate Warren Houston on his percussion ensemble). Mike invited Grant and I to join him for a couple of tunes and we had a most entertaining jam. Then we caught some excellent Dixie from Mike Nisbet and His Trio – if we can play like those guys when we’re that age my life will be happy. (Ironically, I think it was the first true “jazz” we’d heard all weekend – and what a breath of fresh air!)
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The old memory was getting a bit clouded by this point but – probably not in this order – we played the following (including “Tintin…” a song I recently learnt from the Windy City Strugglers wonderful new album Shine On). There were also a few more old blues tunes but I’m buggered if I can remember what they were:
