The Rotorua Blues Festival 2020 - Labour Weekend

The Rotorua Blues Festival is usually held mid-winter but this year due to the same bloody reason as every other event that has been postponed it has moved to Labour Weekend. And all I can do is cheer. Lovely as Rotorua is in July it is really really cold. This will be a huge improvement on what was already a great weekend of music.

The unplugged incarnation of our band Kokomo is heading over for a couple of shows on the Saturday and one more on the Sunday. For the Saturday night show we will be joined by the wonderful Robbie Laven on fiddle, mandolin and more...

Robbie Laven

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a brief guide to what's happening over the weekend. 

The Blues Club there have put together a fantastic programme, with blues from all over New Zealand and a special Australian guest in the form of Sydney's Boogie-Woogie Queen Jan Preston. As well as his Kokomo duties Nigel will be playing bass with Jan.

Jan Preston

(NOTE: If you want to skip these descriptions and go straight to the programme, it's at the bottom of the page...)

(ANOTHER NOTE: Most of the events I'm about to mention are free or require a only gold coin donation.)

The Festival starts in a low-key manner on Thursday 22nd October, 5pm at the Rotorua Night Market with Hammer On and Nikau and the Natives. Friday 23rd sees The Rotorua Social Club host a meet and greet with 6 bands from Rotorua and Tauranga from 5pm till 11pm.

The full festival kicks off on Saturday 24th October in Eat Streat and will be officially opened by Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick at 12pm. There will be 5 bands playing from 12:30pm until 5:30pm, including Kokomo (unplugged) at 3.30pm. We're following The Flaming Mudcats and will be before Hybrid Blues, so it should be a great afternoon.

At the same time The Social Club will also see a full line-up of bands from midday until midnight, spotlighting bands from across the Waikato at The Hamilton Blues Society, including Shotgun, Roger McLay, Conmen, Hillmen Hunters, Agnostic Contrarians, Magic & 3am Blues, and Velvet Bulldozer.

The hub of the Festival is the Rotorua Citizens Club on Saturday and Sunday with 1-day and 2-day passes available: $60 for a 1-day pass or $100 for a 2-day pass (Kids under 18 are Free).

The Flaming Mudcats

There will be 3 stages running each day within the Citizens Club from 12pm until midnight, with “Bumper Concerts” on both nights featuring various headline acts. As I mentioned Kokomo (with Robbie) are part of the Saturday night concert along with Dirty Tones, Fiona & The Holy Pocket, Brown Dog & the Muttleys, and The Flaming Mudcats. Sunday features Jan Preston, Hybrid Blues, The Michael Barker Experience and more.

And there'll also be a Blues Cruise on the Lakeland Queen paddle steamer on Lake Rotorua on Sunday afternoon from 3pm till 5:30pm. Our friends in the Mike Garner Band will be playing that one.

All in all a terrific line-up and it has all the making of a really fun weekend. If you see us over there come and say hello!

Tickets for all events will be available at the registration desk at the entrance to the Rotorua Citizens Club, 1146 Rangiuru St, Rotorua or get them in advance on-line.

 

First Contact

This is essentially a trial post to see if the blog is working. While the rest of the world has been doing this for decades I've so far avoided the fun of gratuitously sharing my opinions on-line. But there's never a bad time to try something new...

So, expect thoughts on food. I've become fascinated with the variations of pho, the Vietnamese noodle soup, so we'll have to do a comparison. There are at least 5 restaurants in Tauranga offering their take - yes, I know this ain't exactly the Big City - so that's a good place to start, and I'll share my recipe for a pretty mean pho stock too (P.S. it's all about the stock).

On the wine front we enjoyed a very good and well-priced Aussie Shiraz yesterday by the unusual name of Don't Tell Gary. Came top in the latest Cuisine tasting. Very decent, neither too ripe and plummy or too peppery, clearly from the cooler climes of Victoria rather than the Barossa. It's on special at New World right now for $19.99. 

Book-wise at the moment I'm fizzing with excitement over the news that a new James Lee Burke Robicheaux novel is due. Sadly not until next May... But I'm still ploughing through James Ellroy's latest This Storm, which is once again dense and extraordinary.

On the film front I have two Russian films lined up - Coma and Sputnik. The former is touted as "a Russian Inception" while Sputnik looks like a creature feature with a returning Cosmonaut infected by an outer space nasty. I will report back! 

And music? Well I'm just getting over the depression that comes with having to cancel another tranche of shows because of this new virus outbreak. Which is a bit gut-wrenching to be honest. But I have been grooving on the Drive-By Truckers fantastic album American Band. It really is a thing of wonder - so smart, so strong and political and a wash of reassuringly nasty guitars. Yum.

OK. That's probably too much. Maybe there was something useful for y'all. I'll get the hang of this soon...