Paula Yeoman looks at the hottest music festivals on offer over the next few months and talks to an expert on the subject of sweet summer vibes, Tiki Taane.
You'll always know where to find Tiki Taane on December 31. The musical maestro has spent the past 19 New Year's Eves on a stage somewhere in the world and, if he has his way, he'll spend many more doing exactly the same.
But he admits with a chuckle that these days he is happy to swap roughing it under the stars at an all-night rave for a camp stretcher and tent in the back corner of a chilled-out, family-oriented festival with his young son and partner.
The former member of Salmonella Dub adds that it helps that music festivals are now slick and professional. "When I first started playing, you'd turn up to some field in the middle of nowhere and there would be one security guy and he'd be drunk."
"You wouldn't know what your set time was and it was usually delayed by four hours. You'd end up sleeping under the truck or in the van - or shack up with some girl who had a tent.
"Probably not much has changed for a lot of people out there," he says with a laugh. "But if you're a performer, it's professional now. It's almost at a point where you get helicoptered in and helicoptered out.
"I've done a lot of stuff overseas and Homegrown, Coromandel Gold, Rhythm and Vines are all on a par with the rest of the world. The production and the way they're treating artists and the line-up, the gear ... it's high-quality stuff now."
The summer circuit is a critical time of the year for a lot of bands and artists. It's where they earn their money. But for Taane, it's not just a case of making hay while the sun shines, it's also about finding new ways to market his music - as well as the music of other Kiwi artists - through his company Tikidub Productions.
In March he will release his second solo album, In The World of Light, from his merchandise tent at the Homegrown festival in Wellington. Traditionally, it's not where you'd expect to buy your first copy of a record. Taane admits it may upset some shops, but he says it's "the way of the future. I'm doing my best to sell my music, my way".
Homegrown is just one of several gigs the award-winning musician has lined up for summer. He's also returning to Coromandel Gold in Whitianga. The festival sold out in record time and if you're one of the unlucky ones without tickets, you'll now have to beg, steal or borrow if you want to ring in the New Year with Shapeshifter, Black Seeds, Trinity Roots, Ladi6 and Katchafire.
Taane predicts the party will be unrivalled, but he's also full of praise for other events such as Rhythm and Vines, which returns to the Waiohika Estate vineyard near Gisborne for the eighth time on December 29.
The three-day extravaganza is now one of summer's most popular events, drawing tens of thousands of eager punters and attracting some of the biggest names in music. This year's headliners are Grammy-winning American musician and producer Pharrell and his band N*E*R*D.
Up-and-coming British rapper Tinie Tempah and Canadian electro-funk duo Chromeo are also on the bill, as is a heap of top-notch local talent, including Shihad, Naked and Famous, Hollie Smith and, in a blast from the past, Dragon.
The legendary Australasian band is now fronted by Kiwi singer Mark Williams, who says it's a privilege to bring back to life iconic songs such as April Sun in Cuba.
"It's absolutely magical," he says. "The show we do has a life of its own, it's a vehicle and we're just the drivers charging it along. You see the reaction on people's faces - recognising songs and probably relating it to some part of their youth. It's a fantastic thing to watch."
Williams acknowledges that while his Dragon bandmates were key players in the Sweetwaters Festivals of the late 70s and 80s, it's something he missed out on.
"I was in a closed bubble," he says. "I was this little pop star who was set apart from everyone else. But I used to hear about everything that went on. I didn't feel so much left out as separate from it."
Now, Williams is making up for lost time and loves the fact that he is in his 50s and back on the Kiwi summer touring circuit. "To do something like [Rhythm and Vines], in this line-up, it feels really fantastic."
Others not to be missed come in the shape of the large international touring events, including new kid on the block, St Jerome's Laneway Festival in Auckland on January 31. It boasts one of the hippest (or most obscure, depending on how you look at it) line-ups of the lot, including Foals and !!! (Chk Chk Chk).
But the stalwarts of summer - the Big Day Out, Raggamuffin and Womad - will draw the biggest crowds. BDO is the heavyweight, stretching across eight stages and packing 45,000 people into Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium.
This year punk legend Iggy Pop (and The Stooges), 80s-90s alt rockers Primal Scream and metallers Rammstein and Tool will no doubt help pull in the more mature festival-goers. But that's not to say the kids are being neglected - other big names on the bill include Australian songstress Sia, rapper and producer M.I.A. and Kiwi dancefloor fillers Kids of 88.
And just announced is the triumphant return of Kiwi festival favourites Steriogram, who after a few years' hiatus regrouped in LA last year to record their latest, Taping The Album.
"Man, we love playing BDO," beams the band's guitarist, Tim Youngson. "It's the pinnacle of NZ festival gigs and we have always had great shows there. When Steriogram started in 1998, one of our first goals was to play the BDO and we managed it after winning a Channel Z competition. We can't wait to get back there and play again."
Meanwhile, cross-continental collective Afro Celt Sound System is headlining Womad in New Plymouth. The three-day event in March first appeared as a biennial event in Auckland in 1997, before relocating to Taranaki in 2003 where it's now an annual gig that draws in hundreds of musicians from around the world.
The Afro Celts first performed at Womad in England in 1995 and played here when the festival was in its infancy. Frontman Simon Emmerson says New Zealanders were among the first in the world to accept their unique blend of Irish and African music traditions.
"There was a point when a group of people in England got together and said 'let's invent world music'. Once the term existed it created this lexicon of definitions and fractional debate about what it was, what it wasn't and who should be playing it.
"It got very boring and restrictive but the nice thing about New Zealand was that you didn't have that. We just turned up and we did it and everyone went, 'Yeah, great'."
For Emmerson, world music is as significant now as it was then and he sees festivals like Womad as a crucial platform.
"I think world music is one of the most exciting areas for innovation in music. In 1995 it was club and dance music; that's where people were taking risks and that's where the cutting edge of music was happening. I really don't think that's the case now. Music has become more performance and musician-based."
As British reggae legend Maxi Priest (who's playing at Raggamuffin 2011 with Mary J Blige and Jimmy Cliff) points out, it's all about the vibe.
"I come from the early Sunsplash [a reggae festival first held in Jamaica in 1978]. Raggamuffin is a similar thing and I hope it continues to grow that way. You're bringing together all different people from all walks of life. It creates a really nice party. Hey, what more do you want?"
Tiki Taane couldn't agree more. "You can never beat that live experience - of being in that moment with your friends and family or meeting and connecting with new people."
Rhythm and Vines, Waiohika Estate, Gisborne, December 29-31; Coromandel Gold is at Whitianga on December 31; Big Day Out, Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland, January 21; Raggamuffin Music Festival, Rotorua International Stadium, February 5; Homegrown Music Festival, Wellington waterfront, March 5; Womad, New Plymouth, March 18-20.
