Rockin’ the ‘Bat House’

It was quite a surprise to be asked by the San Francisco Bath House to do a gig just before Christmas – it was quite short notice, but what the heck? It’s not every day you get asked to headline a gig, after all… plus, the proposed date was The Day After The End Of The World, and who wouldn’t want to celebrate that? (Assuming we were still here, of course!)

As we now know, the world didn’t end on the 21st (hooray!) so it was all systems go on the 22nd!

The San Fran Bath House has quite a modest-sized stage, so a small group of 15 of us (plus Tim C and Darryn directing) had been selected to play. The venue got a noise control complaint during our afternoon sound check/rehearsal, so we were definitely going to be loud enough! Continue reading

The Batucada laydeez kick some ass!

The Festival celebrates the Latin culture through live performances, art & crafts and traditional food stalls, games and children’s activities. As the Festival is organised by the Latin American Women’s Group, we thought it would be a nice idea to send along an all-female version of Wellington Batucada, directed by Carin, in one of her first big directing gigs. Exciting!

Two things were on my mind before the gig. The first was along the lines of “Gulp – we’re playing Latin American music to a real Latin American audience – I really really hope they like us!” The second was “Gosh – an all-girl Batucada gig – I’ve never done one of those before – I hope we can show that – much as we love playing with the boys – we can do just as well without them…”

I needn’t have worried – it was an awesome gig in all respects – not least because the audience was COMPLETELY BRILLIANT – and so, as a result – were we. Continue reading

How sweet is this?

We were rather pleased to have been invited to take part in the Island Bay Playcentre Fundraising Gala this year – our smallest ever audience (haha!).

A very small and select group of Batucadans (is that a word? It is now…) was chosen to play this gig – I think the organisers were a bit worried that we might be too loud for the little ones if there were too many of us… and a lovely time was had by all. Here’s a video and some pics: Continue reading

Drumming in the rain, French maids, and an appearance on the catwalk

I thought there was an unwritten law that the weather is always insanely good throughout the Wellington Sevens weekend, with nary a drop of rain to be seen. Seems the Weather Gods mislaid the memo this year, because Saturday was wetwetwet.

At noon we did a short performance outside the stadium gates to a small and slightly damp crowd – check out the impressive fluoro-clad recording equipment!

Video by AtThe7s

Once we’d finished we were bussed back to the start of the waterfront parade route, and decided (seeing as the weather was so crappy) to do a bit of an impromptu gig under the arches next to Mac’s Brewbar.
Continue reading