Dave Dobbyn to be welcomed home by loyal Waipawa fans

Dave Dobbyn opening for Rod Stewart's first Mission Concert in Napier in 2005. Photo / File

New Zealand music icon Dave Dobbyn has chosen Waipawa for the second concert of his first tour since the Covid-19 lockdown.

But the August 21 show is not his first in the town's Central Hawke's Bay Municipal Theatre, which includes the town hall that opened in 1910 and survived the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake.

He did two shows there in May 2016, slotting-in an afternoon matinee to meet the demand and seeing it sold-out within three hours.

The 63-year-old, who first appeared in Hawke's Bay with Th' Dudes in the 1970s and who opened for Rod Stewart's first Mission Estate concert in Napier in 2005, will with his band open a tour of mainly-smaller centres in Gisborne on August 20, with a road trip of about four hours ahead for the gig in Waipawa 24 hours later.

Over the next fortnight he will do also do shows in Feilding, Whanganui, Paraparaumu, Putaruru, Stratford and Christchurch.

Since the start of the Covid-19 alert level-4 lockdown four months ago, Dobbyn's only show was a Music Helps charity event via Zoom.