One of the best gigs of the year – for sure!

The Newtown Fair is always awesome to be a part of. It’s vibrant, noisy, multicultural, jam-packed, and has the maddest, most celebratory atmosphere you can imagine.

This year, for some reason, that jam-packed madness was multiplied 10-fold, and we had one of the best parades I think we’ve EVER done.

We were planning to parade down the full length of the Fair in one direction, and then turn around and parade all the way back again in the other direction. Based on previous experience, we estimated it would take us between 30 minutes and an hour.

Boy, were we wrong this year.

It took us an hour and a half to get most of the way through the Fair in one direction – and we didn’t even attempt to turn round and go back the other way, there were just too many people!

It was quite, quite, mad. At times we’d be standing still, playing, rather than parading and playing, because the sheer number of people dancing in front of us (into the hundreds) meant we couldn’t go anywhere!

Completely brilliant. At the end we said a noisy (and rhythmic) farewell to Ang, who’s heading off back home to Ireland. We’ll miss you!

What a wonderful day.

Newtown Festival, Wellington 2013 – video by Benjamin Humphrey