R&V: Kimbra a 'guaranteed winner'

Kiwi pop sensation Kimbra. Photo / Michael Craig

Kiwi singer Kimbra heads an international and New Zealand list of acts for Gisborne New Year music festival Rhythm and Vines 2012.

The defining features of the line-up take a nostalgic look at the past while keeping a sharp eye on the future.

"It is our 10th anniversary so naturally we've got a little bit sentimental in some of the artists we have booked for this year," says Hamish Pinkham, co-founder and programme director for the music festival, held annually at Gisborne's Waiohika Estate.

With the festival still nearly five months away, the team also had to be conscious of fresh acts that would be hot at the time.

"You have to keep a close ear to the ground and have a good understanding of what is coming out, who is touring and how people are going to respond to those acts.

"That is something we have done pretty well at in the past, like getting Tiny Tempah last year who was relatively unknown when we booked him in August, but by the end of the year he was huge."

On the nostalgia side there are acts that have played R&V in the past, including DJ/producers Chase and Status (UK) and Netsky (Belgium), New Zealanders P-Money, Ruby Frost and Six 60 and Wellington band The Black Seeds, around whom the inaugural 2002 festival was centred.

Among the fresh and the new are celebrity DJ Mark Ronson, Australian electro duos Knife Party and The Presets, psychedelic rockers Tame Impala, also from across the ditch, and Auckland indie trio Five Mile Town.

The ever-popular Netsky visits that camp . . . though he has played DJ sets at R&V in the past, his live album (and live show) is tipped to be huge as the year progresses.

Also a "guaranteed winner" is Kiwi songstress Kimbra, who Pinkham had considered booking in past years before her international career took off, and who he believes will be a huge drawcard.

There are still more acts to be announced - among them the "classic" artists who will fill the slot last year occupied by Dragon - and by the time the team has finished they will have confirmed over 100 acts to perform on five stages over the three-day course of the festival.

With more than two-thirds (17,000) of the available tickets already sold, team R&V is confident of reaching their 30,000 capacity for the 2012 festival - meaning Gisborne will again be inundated with visitors from around the country and the world.

Acts confirmed so far: The Presets,Chase and Status, Kimbra, Mark Ronson, Netsky, Knife Party, Disclosure, Six60, Tame Impala, Hospital Records (featuring High Contrast, Logistics, Camo & Krooked, S.P.Y and MC Wrec), Maya Jane Coles, Arraabmuzik, The Black Seeds, Chali 2na, P-Money, Ruby Frost, Parachute Youth, Five Mile Town.

- Gisborne Herald