Dobbyn pulls expat following

Dave Dobbyn hopes to play regular summers in Britain. Picture / Michael Cunningham

LONDON - When you're a national institution who spends every summer playing to Kiwis at holiday destinations around the country, what do you do when winter arrives?

You head to the other side of the world, where New Zealanders are hungry for a slice of their home culture.

Dave Dobbyn is no stranger to the London music scene, but now he is set to make his classic summer gigs a regular thing in Britain's capital.

Dobbyn is among a growing number of New Zealand acts - unknown to most Britons - pulling sellout crowds on the London circuit.

"I'd like to make it a regular thing in the northern summer," he says. "There are a lot of festivals around. I wouldn't mind hitching a ride on that scene. Playing to New Zealanders in London is a noble thing to do."

The number of New Zealanders Dobbyn is playing for next weekend in London will be in the thousands; he is the main act at the Toast New Zealand food and wine festival in Regents Park. Hundreds more fans are expected to turn up four days later to see Dobbyn at another venue in the city.

Dobbyn's well-known anthems, such as Loyal, Slice of Heaven and Whaling, drew 4000 people to see him play at London's Brixton Academy two years ago, and 6000 at a previous New Zealand Food and Wine festival in the heat of summer.

The veteran singer and songwriter is still coming up with new music at the age of 49. Welcome Home, from his latest album Available Light, which has sold 30,000 copies, is the latest example, and sure to feature on the playlist at Toast.

It may be the sense of nostalgia for his audience's homeland that makes Dobbyn's music popular overseas.

"I am romantically in love with my country and that doesn't change - it just grows," he says. "The part I like [at London concerts] is when everyone's holding up their mobile phones talking to mum at 9 in the morning. It is quaint, I know, but I love it."

Couple that with the fact that he frequently puts in 14-hour days, making him a prolific writer of songs about the day-to-day lives of ordinary New Zealanders.

"I clock in every day and I have done for years," he says.

"I don't view it any different to if I made furniture or pianos, or anything where a lot of craftsmanship was involved. I am industrious. It is just ordinary applied science just to get the job done and keep writing songs.

"Thankfully I can enjoy a lot of the old tunes. They never seem to die and that feels good. Welcome Home, for example, really hit a spot and I found myself with another jolly anthem on my hands. You don't make them yourself, people make anthems."

Unlike many Kiwis, Dobbyn never came to London in his youth. Instead he chose Australia.

"When I was the age when I should have gone on the big OE, I ended up going to Australia, but we didn't have anything to draw us apart from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. At the time it was the Brixton Riots and the Sex Pistols and the Clash, and so then I didn't really have any desire to go to London."

But he says he has always considered himself more like a tourist in London - even now as he looks to capitalise on the booming expat audiences.

Other artists, some of whom have been around as long as Dobbyn, are doing the same thing. Jordan Luck recently completed a British tour with his post-Exponents band, Luck, which sold out.

Younger talents are also making the move. Fat Freddys Drop recently performed to a sellout audience - mostly New Zealanders - at south London's Brixton Academy.

"Fat Freddys Drop, they are all good players and operators," Dobbyn says. "There is a lot more music coming out than when I started. We have some guys 18 years old. They start playing and they are all hotshots. I get a big kick out of seeing people realising songs are the thing. It is pretty healthy for our little island, but it has got a long way to go."