It’s been a couple of years since we played at the Footvolley Championship at Oriental Bay, so we were happy to get the opportunity to perform again this year.
Gorgeous day (the Summer of 2016 will long go down in Wellington history as some of the best sustained sunshiny weather in years) and a good crowd watching the athletes doing their crazy football-crossed-with-volleyball gymnastics on the beach. Continue reading
Lisa’s instructions for costuming were “Red or green T-shirts to match the Christmassy theme, plus whatever Christmas-related pimpimg you want to do on your drums, heads and hats”.
Some people took this more seriously than others – particularly Paquita who turned up wearing the most amazing starry headdress I’ve ever seen. Awesome!
Such a beautiful sunny day, the crowds were enormous (70,000 they said), we were pretty awesome (and oh so modest!) and Tess (surdo #3), Charlotte (caixa) and Shelly (surdo #2) all played their first gig. Great stuff! Continue reading
So – we’ve never done the Upper Hutt Christmas Parade before, but the organisers had seen us on parade earlier in the year, absolutely loved us, and invited us to lead the 2015 event. How cool!
It’s quite a long route, which is always good because we get a real workout, and the streets were absolutely thronged with people watching the parade. Lovely atmosphere too – we had a great time.
It was Simon-the-German’s first gig with us and it was great to have him there. He plays in a samba band in Nuremberg, Germany, and saw us performing at the Coburg Samba Festival last year. He’s in New Zealand for 6 months or so on his OE, and got in touch the minute he arrived in Wellington. It’s very cool to see how far our reputation reaches these days 🙂 Continue reading
It’s no secret that some of Batucada’s well-connected ladies had been looking out for a suitable match for Dr Phill for a while. In the end though, he did it without our help, and met the very lovely Dr Bron, and a perfect match ensued. Hooray!
We were completely honoured to be asked to perform at their wedding, held at the Boatshed on Wellington’s waterfront. Our role was to keep Phill company until the bride arrived, and then to play her up the stairs and into the Boatshed itself.
We were planning to wait outside and start playing once Bron appeared, but the slightly torrential rain rather put a stop to that plan. Instead we waited at the top of the stairs, dressed in our wedding finery, ready to form a guard of honour and drum Bron through to her groom.
Dazzer did the directing honours, we played our little hearts out with massive grins on our faces, and the bride looked lovely. Her flower girls, complete with flowered bicycles, were super-cute. Dr Phill looked every inch the (very proud) husband-to-be.
The wedding ceremony (which we were all invited to) was just fabulous, with a highlight being the mass sing-along of the Monkees’ song I’m a Believer, which was pretty much the most appropriate song I can imagine we could sing from Dr Phil, to Dr Bron. Just fantastic.
The reception was great, the venue fab, the cake spectacular, the speeches all just the right length and hilarious, and we danced until we couldn’t dance any more. What a perfect day. Congratulations Dr Phill and Dr Bron! May you be happy forever.
Photos by Paul Howell Photography. Click on any thumbnail to see the larger version. You can use left and right arrows on your keyboard to navigate:
There are heaps more lovely photos of the wedding here – Bron & Phill’s Wintery Wedding at Wellingtons Boatshed – enjoy!
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. Continue reading
Wellington Batucada was honoured to be invited once again to play for guests at the Brazilian Embassy’s Brazil National Day celebrations – a celebration of the 193rd Anniversary of the Independence of Brazil. The event was held on 7 September 2015 at Te Whaea (NZ School of Dance), Wellington.
A group of drummers and dancers performed at the invite-only event, with Wellington Batucada featuring at the top of the bill. Guests including the Brazilian Ambassador danced enthusiastically (and skillfully) to our Brazilian beats. Continue reading
You may recall a few months ago we hassled you incessantly to vote for us in the WOMAD Performer Competition. The prize was to perform at WOMAD 2015.
You may also recall that we won the competition (thank you SO MUCH for your votes!), and last Saturday we claimed our prize, and played for an hour on the Gables Stage at the WOMAD festival in New Plymouth.
Wow. What an amazing experience. When I got up that morning, all excited and full of anticipation, I told myself that this was very likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and a highlight of our drumming career – and that I should enjoy every single moment of it.
We love Newtown Fair. It’s one of our favourite gigs of the summer, because the crowds are so huge and the mass dancing so enthusiastic.
The weather was perfect (very hot!) the crowds were perfect (hotter!) and the samba was perfect too (even hotter!). Continue reading
Saturday – we were even more awesome than we had been on Friday (is that even possible?) – more people, more intricate costumes, more beautiful weather and fabulous drumming.
Could you wish for anything more? Continue reading
2015 marked the year we TOTALLY AND UTTERLY ROCKED IT with our Sevens waterfront parade costumes.
I don’t know what it is about Steampunk that fires people up to produce their best work costume-wise, but it sure as hell does.
We’ve never looked better. Continue reading