Twice postponed, but not three times: Sir Dave Dobbyn will play this weekend in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Paul Taylor
Twice postponed, but not three times: Sir Dave Dobbyn will play this weekend in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Paul Taylor
After months of mahi, concert-starved Hawke's Bay is finally getting the treats.
The outlook for Sunday is good as Sir Dave Dobbyn's twice-cancelled Hawke's Bay show finally goes ahead at Black Barn Vineyard's outdoor amphitheatre.
And then on Saturday, January 15, one of Hawke's Bay's biggest ever music festivals -a reimagined and expanded Nest Fest - is all go at the Showground Hawke's Bay Tomoana.
After Cape Estate successfully introduced the region to the Government's traffic light system for its Boxing Day festival, a brave new world of high-profile shows are now ahead for the region.
Outfield Festival in February is one of them, with Six60 at McLean Park in April possibly the crowning jewel.
Black Barn events manager Francis de Jager said Dobbyn would be their first show of the season, and it was fantastic that he had agreed to reschedule rather than cancel the show.
"Third time lucky," he told Hawke's Bay Today with a grin. "It's great to finally be able to get our first show up and running."
De Jager said some VIP seated and general admission tickets remained to see the Kiwi music legend, who has a strong line-up of support acts including Louis Baker, Georgia Lines and locals Arahi.
Marlon Williams will be one of the headline artists for Nest Fest next week. Photo / Getty Images
Meanwhile planning is well under way for the arrival of 6000 festivalgoers to the Showgrounds next week, the majority of them from out of town.
Festival organiser Harry Pettit, from Bird's Nest Entertainment, said the majority of the crowd at this stage was from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
With camping sites sold out, Pettit said he would love to get more locals along to the festival, which has a stacked line up of talent that includes the likes of Marlon Williams, Ladyhawke and Liam Finn.
He said the festival would be a completely different set-up to last year's Six60 concert, and would be spread across five custom stages, including one in the Waikoko Gardens and an indoor stage in the exhibition hall.
Other smaller shows continue to impress around Hawke's Bay's venues across the festive season too.
Rocking the Paisley Stage in Napier this Friday will be Sam Manzanza with his band at the Afro Music experience show.
Manzanza is a leading NZ base African performance artist who popularised traditional and modern African music in New Zealand.
A versatile instrumentalist, composer, and singer, he plays blues harp, guitar, and percussion, composes most of the songs his band performs, and sings in French, English and Lingala.
His knowledge of traditional rhythms is honed by years spent with the National Ballet of Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).
