Oceania Storm CD Release Party

Polynesian dance at the CD launch party.

What a great CD launch party!  Oceania Storm launched it's latest CD last night in Mangere.  A few other acts took to the stage in support of Oceania Storm and it was a wonderful evening of Polynesian entertainment.  There were dancers and musicians from all around the Pacific and I had a wonderful time.

Oceania Storm were the main act though and the band was in great form.    Strings were supplied by members of Auckland's Philharmonic Orchestra and I'm sure I recognised some of the brass section from other bands!  All up the band comprised sixteen musicians and three vocalists and they sounded very good indeed.  Good work by the guys on the sound desk.

Lighting was pretty good.  Way better than the last time I shot the band at the Bellbird in Manurewa!  The only problem now was the smoke machine gave a somewhat hazy and lack lustre appearance to a number of my shots, but I suppose that just adds to the atmosphere?

I'll close this post with a few shots of the Oceania Storm band members form the night.  The shots you see here are just a small selection of the ones taken and there's quite a few performers I haven't added to this post. If you think I may have some shots of you you'd like to see, please email me as I'm sure we can sort something out for you.

Rico at the Bellbird

Earlier this evening I went down to see Rico Tali playing with Oceania Storm at the Bellbird in Manurewa.  It's a really good band and the folks there were having a great time dancing along to the music.  The light was probably the best on Rico ... hence the shots in this post are all of Rico!  Unfortunately the lights were quite low down which tends to give a somewhat ghoulish appearance to the performers and presents some unpleasant shadows from the stands and microphones.  Ah well, the sound was good even though it was hard to get some shots.  Perhaps next time?  I'll close this post with a couple more shots of Rico.

Rico Tali and Oceania Storm

It must be just over a year ago that I first met Rico playing with Allegro at the Osborne Street Bar in Newmarket, Auckland.  There he was, switching between saxophone, flute and bongo drums.  Very talented gent, and I must admit to being very impressed with his skills on the sax and flute.  Here's an old shot of Rico on flute you might like.

More recently I saw Rico at the Stage of Origin event.  There he was playing the guitar!  Haha ... saxophone, flute, guitar, drums and, as it happens, vocals also.  Hugely talented gent.

So, when I caught up with Rico down at Manurewa's RSA it wasn't a surprise to see him on the guitar.  Playing with Oceania Storm Rico switched between sax and guitar as well helping out with the vocals.  It was good, but I wasn't impressed with the lights.

Oceania Storm has more members (12) than any of the other groups with which I'd seen Rico perform previously and the music was predominately of the Reggae style.  The folks at the RSA loved it!  Many folks, young and old, were on the dance floor  having a fine time.

I'll close this post with a couple more shots from the evening.  Exposures were at about 1/50sec, aperture f1.8 and ISO up at 6400.  As I said ... the light wasn't the best.