Waitangi Day at the Barry Curtis Regional Park

Just a few of the folks enjoying a wonderful performance by Ardijah.

Busy?  Haha!  Just a little!!!  Heaps of people at the Barry Curtis Park enjoying a glorious day with some of New Zealand's top musical talent putting on a free show.  A real family affair and I think everyone had a wonderful time.  Shame it's not Waitangi Day more often!

Sadly I didn't get there until later in the day.  The blackbirds and thrushes have discovered my blueberry bushes so I spent a good part of the morning setting up netting.  I didn't get to the park until close to 3pm when Ardijah came on stage.  These guys have talent.  Big favourites of the crowd too.  Betty Anne on lead vocals and ukelele is a star performer.  I'll add a couple of shots at the end of this post for you to look at.

Really looking forward to seeing and hearing Ardijah again in the very near future.

Betty Anne in fine voice at the Waitangi Day celebrations.

Betty Anne and just look at the crowd!

The band ... Ardijah.  (L-R: Ryan Monga, Betty-Anne Monga, Rico Tali, Karl Benton and Ryan Monga Jr.)

Matariki celebrations at the Aotea Centre

Stan Walker at the Aotea Centre, Auckland.

What a treat!  The Tiramarama Concert at the Aotea Centre in Auckland with performances by, amongst others, Ardijah, Adeaze, Stan Walker, Hinewehi Mohi, Tama Waipara and the Auckland Chamber Orchestra.  This was a truely wonderful event, a real delight.  You may recall I took some photographs of Rico Tali at a local bar the other day.  I wasn't impressed with the lighting at the bar, so the concert in the Aotea Centre was a chance to get some better shots.

Stan Walker with members of the kapa haka Te Waka Huia.

Rico Tali

The lighting was good, but not as intense as I would have liked.  ISO was still up high at 3200 and my minimum aperture was f5.6.  Nevertheless I managed a few reasonable shots.  

First image in this post is of Stan Walker.  Stan won the Australian Idol Competition back in 2009 and his careeer has gone from strength to strength since then.  Hugely popular with the crowd, especially when he performed the Kapa Haka Group (second image).

You can see Rico in the third shot in this post.  Much better light than at the local bar and I must admit to being quite pleased with the results.  ISO3200, f5.6 and 1/15sec.  Focal length was 250mm, in 35mm speak, so I think you'll agree that the VR on the Nikkor lens is pretty good.  Well, either that or I have a very steady hand!  The image has been sharpened slightly and then I've used the "black clipping", clarity and vibrance to get a bit more contrast into the image.

Betty-Anne from Ardijah

The fourth shot in this post is of Betty-Anne Monga, lead singer of Ardijah.  I first met Betty-Anne last year at a free concert in Mangere.  I must admit to being enthralled by her performance.  She played an electric ukelele as well as sang and I was totally smitten.  She was wonderful.  Same again this evening.  Wonderful performance.

The fifth shot in this post is of Hinewehi Mohi.  You may recall Hinewehi for her Oceania CDs.  More recently she is perhaps better known for her work with the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre.  A recent article gives a bit more insight into her involvment with the Centre.  As always, a beautiful voice and a wonderful performance by Hinewehi.

Hinewehi Mohi

The last few shots are of Adeaze (Nainz and Viiz Tupai) and Grace Ikenasio.  These guys can sing ... whoa they can sing.  They came on stage and I was quite stunned by their vocal talents.  Wonderful.  Haha, and then to top it off they get Grace to sing with them as well.  What a treat.

So, as I said at the start, this was a VERY special evening.  Great performances by some of New Zealand's best musical talent.  Hopefully the few shots you see in this post will give you a small taste of what we enjoyed.  Please follow the links in the post to the different artists websites and check out their music.  I suspect you won't be disappointed.

Grace Ikenasio.

Logovi'i Tupa'i, Adeaze.

Feagaigafou Tupa'i, Adeaze.

2010 Pacific Music Awards

Wow!  What a great night out.  The performers were just oozing with music, rhythm and talent.  The MCs for the night (Yolande Ah Chong and Alphonso Maiava) where wonderful and highly entertaining.  I usually think of the MCs as people who get in the way of the acts I've come to see, but this pair were a quality act in their own right!  Wonderful.

Something else that struck me wasn't just the family focus ... even though I think every artist had extended family members in the audience AND the audience was made up of people whose age in years ranged from single to those I guessed were getting close to three digits!  No, what really impressed me was the acknowledgement of their Heavenly Father as the gracious provider of their musical talents.  These artists and performers weren't there basking in their own glory, they were exercising their God given talents for the enjoyment of those around them; their Pacific Island families and friends, and they weren't afraid to acknowledge from where their talents had come.  I almost wished I was a Pacific Islander myself!!

Privileged to be associated with such a wonderful group of people?  Well, our mayor Len Brown certainly is.  He was back on stage this year and had brought along a few of his fellow councillors.  This man really loves the Pacific people he represents, and I think it's fair to say they're rather fond of him too.  He was having a ball!  You could tell he relished every moment.  Great to see him looking so well and having so much fun.

I was keen to go to get some shots of MIT presenting a Lifetime Achievement Award to Ardijah.  I'd met Betty-Ann Monga the previous week when she performed at the Mangere Town Centre Mangere Love event and she was superb.  On the Saturday night she was missing, but her fellow band members came along to collect the award.  I was quite looking forward to hearing Betty-Ann sing again, but no such luck.

The other reason I was keen to go was to see Malcolm Lakatani perform.  Malcolm is truely a highly talented musician.  He collected together some friends to perform what for me was the best performance of the evening ... but perhaps I'm biased?

Disappointed that even though nominated for three awards on the night, he only played one number and didn't win an award.  Never mind ... next year!!

So there you go.  I had a great time and am really looking forward to next year's event.  I took heaps of photos, met many lovely people, heard some wonderful music and laughed and enjoyed myself like I hadn't done for quite some time.  If you'd like some photos, just email me and I'll help out where I can.  My email address is over on the right ->

Are you my Facebook friend?  If you are here's some shots of the event, and here's some shots of Malcolm and his band.