Fat Freddy's Drop

Here’s a few choice snaps from another superb music night out in New Zealand. Thanks to a dawn raid on Real Groovy in Wellington a couple of months ago we managed to grab our tickets to this exclusive event and it was well worth the effort! Once again we were rewarded with a very positive experience of a small venue, ample bar, friendly relaxed crowd and awesome sound system which was put to full use both by the warm up DJ and the band.

We discovered many of the New Zealand bands like to play a very different live set to their albums - and FFD is infamous amongst the NZ crowds for doing this. There was almost no silence over two and a half hours - you could tell that some of the musicians on stage came from a jazz background. At times the set went really psychedelic and improvisational and the energy was fantastic. It was lovely to see 7 musicians obviously enjoying themselves so much. The atmosphere was very infectious as the whole crowd were dancing the night away, it felt far more like a club night than a gig. It was really wonderful and for me unusual to see such an established band doing this - very refreshing. I enjoyed trying to spot the occasional tune from the albums - I reckon they played 3!

So all in all another excellent New Zealand gig - we'll definitely miss this place!

Brewery Tour

We've just reached the end of an awesome week on the west coast with Katie and Dom, it was so hectic and packed with fun experiences that it felt like we were on holiday all over again too!
While you wait for me to set up more photos and Amy to dream up the words here's a quick photo story showing what we got up to on our first evening together in Greymouth at the Monteith's Brewery.
Sadly I didn't get any photos of the dwarf night that was on at the first pub we went to after this, or of the singalonga oirish night at the last pub, so you'll just have to use your imagination there ;)