Or, how to freeze your sticks off at a “spring” festival

Hastings was unseasonably cool this year. Actually, let’s be honest – it was BLIMMIN FREEZING.

The overall theme was “Great Things Grow Here” so we decided that floral hats and other accoutrements would be the order of the day. About half the band got dressed up in their best floral attire, which looked great.

This year Hastings was just Wellington Batucada and Bay Batucada – the other members of the Greater New Zealand Samba Family weren’t in attendance, sadly, so we had to make lots of noise on our own instead. We missed them! We also missed the sunshine, which was markedly absent for the majority of the parade, really until the very end when the sun finally came out.

It was so cold beforehand that, instead of mustering at our normal gathering point at the start of the parade route we all ran away into heated vehicles or nearest pubs in order to keep warm. Really – it was snowing, pretty much! Lordy! First gig I’ve done in a very long time where I needed to wear my official Batucada sweatshirt while playing.

Still, we looked very spring-like, and I think we sounded OK as well. Pity the poor dancers in their teeny tiny flimsy costumes. Eek! Well done guys.

Photo gallery

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