Hot bands and cool brews

Nikita Tu-Bryant playing with her band KITA on the Love Lives Here tour. Picture by Mark Russell

Expect some top notch live music to go with the cold brews at the 5th Annual Gisborne Beer Festival coming to the Gisborne Soundshell on Easter Saturday. Festival-goers are promised a selection of beers from some of New Zealand’s top breweries and street food delights.

Also on the menu is live music from Marlin’s Dreaming and KITA, as well as local bands Pray 4 Summer and The Rabbits, and a silent disco.

Marlin’s Dreaming are a young band hailing from a cold, damp flat in Hope Street, Dunedin. Since they came on the music scene in 2017, they have had several sold-out tours of New Zealand and released three albums.

The band are also Rolling Stone AU/NZ favourites: “Dunedin indie rockers Marlin’s Dreaming are one sleep from stardom,” the publication declared in 2022.

Marlin’s Dreaming have had sold-out runs in Australia at venues like Black Bear Lodge, Northcote Social Club and Oxford Arts Factory.  In Aotearoa New Zealand they are fast becoming a must-see band, selling out venues all over the country. Marlin’s Dreaming have also played support for Parquet Courts, Kirin J Callinan, The Chills, Dope Lemon and Ocean Alley.

The band are working on their fourth album so audiences can expect to hear some new material.

KITA meld inspirations of folk, soul, pop and psychedelia with the guitar and spirited storytelling of musician-actor Nikita Tu-Bryant (Avatar 2, Far North) the thick lushness of Moog synth and Fender Rhodes from Ed Zuccollo (Zuke); and the filthy drive and barking drums of Rick Cranson (Little Bushman). They have long since solidified themselves as a must-see live band with a massive sound.

Nikita recently spent a summer in Gisborne and treated audiences to a solo acoustic show at Tatapouri Cafe.

KITA will be playing a later set at the festival and people can expect a dynamic show that ramps up as the night goes on.

“We love getting deep into the long grooves to get people moving, in collaboration with the lights,” says Nikita.

“That’s one of the joys of playing a night set — the interaction with the lights and the trance-like experience we enter when we sit into a groove for long enough. It is a conversation between the audience and us on stage.”

KITA took a break over summer but recently played their first show of the year at the Newtown Festival in Wellington. They have just released a double EP vinyl that they’ll be bringing to share with Gisborne.

■ Gisborne Beer Festival, Saturday March 30, 12 noon to 7pm. Gisborne Soundshell