Six60: The night Maraenui's Marlon Gerbes came home

Six60 members Marlon Gerbes, left, and Chris Mac backstage before their massive Tomoana Showgrounds concert. Photo / Ian Cooper

Marlon Gerbes used to come to the Hastings Showgrounds every year as a kid for the A & P Show.

On Saturday night the Six60 synths and samples man came to the same venue, now known as Showgrounds Hawke's Bay Tomoana, to play his music for a sellout crowd of 20,000 people.

Gerbes said it was really cool to be playing at home, especially at the showgrounds given the part they played in his upbringing.

"We had family that had hot dog stalls, candy floss stalls and so on," he said, laughing that it meant free food every year.

Gerbes, who grew up in Maraenui, said his time as a student at Napier Boys' High School was very formative and he knew education was his way out.

He attended the University of Otago, where Six60 was formed with fellow students Chris Mac, Matiu Walters, Ji Fraser and Eli Paewai, who grew up in Dannevirke.

Marlon Gerbes said it was amazing to play in front of family at the Tomoana Showgrounds in Hastings. Photo / Ian Cooper

"My upbringing in music [in Hawke's Bay] was heavy metal, death metal, big bogan scene here," Gerbes said.

Local favourite drum and bass was also a big touchstone for him, and he said the presence of support act Shapeshifter on Saturday was huge for Hawke's Bay.

Chris Mac said the band is a mesh of the cultures each member brought to the table when they met in Dunedin.

"Our upbringings, the environment we grew up in probably do play in to our personalities, aspirations, the way we think about things," he said.

"It probably does help even things out at times. Musically we all come from really different backgrounds as well."

Six60 only got into town on Friday, but had a longer visit to Hawke's Bay back in December.

Mac said he hadn't really been anywhere except Napier previously, so was stoked to get around a few wineries and spend some time in Hastings.

"Hastings is cool, man, it was a great buzz," he said.

But the highlight of the trip for the bassist was a visit to Paewai's family farm in Dannevirke for a feed and a bit of shearing.

"That was fun, I'd never done it weirdly enough, so jumped at the chance to try it," Mac said.

"It's like a little dance, there's quite a beautiful art to shearing a sheep."

Gerbes added that it was cool to see Paewai step back into it so easily as well.

About 20,000 locals and people from out of town attended the concert. Photo / Ian Cooper

He said the number one thing from his hometown he wanted to share with the band was his dad Gary's place in Maraenui, the house he grew up in.

"My dad's a character," Gerbes laughed.

"Legend," Mac exclaimed.

"I could spend hours talking to that guy."

Gerbes said that playing back home in Hawke's Bay made for quite a different build-up for him compared to any other show.

He said a lot of family were hitting him up for tickets, and he had to source close to 80 by the time Saturday rolled around.

"And half of them came (on Saturday), out of nowhere," he said.

Mac said hometown gigs are always interesting like that:

"It's awesome, and then it's also this added level of admin."

Gerbes said he was just excited to have played for his family, including some younger nieces and nephews who hadn't seen him live before, too.