Cornerstone Roots tour diary part 5: the triumphant homecoming

And we've played the last gig of the New Zealand tour, so here's an update on the last 4 shows…

The Boileroom in Whakatane was a great gig with a good crowd, the bar had mean pizzas and a rider with boxes of Woodies n' Beers. It was obvious that people knew our sounds - great singing from the first 3 rows and and real cool crowd. At 2am we rolled upstairs (with a dozen or so people from the bar) afterwards and hung out till the wee hours…..

Next morning, off to Napier - we bypass Rotovegas and go through the Kaingaroa Forest...looked like Mordor! We land in Napier and visit the Tea House, awesome food and a great venue, unfortunately we're not playing here, we're playing down the road at Latitude.

Anyway Tropical Beat Orchestra are the support band, wicked band, great grooves. We play our set, again a great appreciative crowd, we hook into the rider, we hang out with people, we go back to the hotel, I gotta say in the morning I order the best breakfast so far on this tour, the "Rewana Special" with mushrooms. Basically, poached eggs on yummy rewana bread.

 

Wellington, 6pm we arrive and do the instore at Real Groovy, really good. Haven't done that before, play a little set to about 50 or so people in Real Groovy, I thought someone was gonna tell us to shut up as there was heapsa people thumbing through the record bins…but nah, they're all into it. It just so happens the Warriors are on and they lose and that sums up the night for some of us, but all in all Wellington was a good gig with loyal fans, The Midnights come down and support the gig and play a good set.

There was confusion on the dates - some websites said Saturday and some Friday, those that turned up on the Saturday were really pissed off with us, don't blame them!

Last gig for the tour - the Raglan Town Hall with Ladi6 & Parks and nu motion ensemble, this was a bit of a nervous one and took us a while to ease into it. But we really enjoyed it; we got offstage at 1:40am after playing a 2 hour set.

 

All in all it was a successful tour, in retrospect consecutive shows seem to work easier but spacing them over a few months can drag and you always want to do more than 2 shows in a row. Big shout out to the band, our families, Rhythmethod, Chant and Lauren Clough for convincing me to sing "Live to Air" with just an acoustic!

Next up, we're being filmed playing live for the Basslines TV show on September 15th, and then we're off on an 11-date Australian tour on the 20th.

See Ya!! CNR stone ROOTS