Explosive harbour-side bash

Sam Hryckow at yesterday's festival. Picture / Martin Sykes

There were exploding balls of glittering colour, cannon-like booms and falling streams of orange mist disappearing into clouds of glowing smoke.

The 15-minute extravaganza in the skies above the Auckland waterfront lured thousands to vantage spots beside the harbour. Families, couples and clusters of teenagers stood shoulder-to-shoulder for the show.

The display splashed the balmy, clear sky with licks of green, spots of red and a comet-like orange glow that climbed 500m for the finale, prompting wolf-whistles and cheers from the masses.

New Zealand bands Goldenhorse and the Exponents set the tone earlier in the evening with familiar anthems, with the final song - Why does love do this to me? - launching straight into the fireworks.

The tone in the Viaduct for the day was set by men playing accordions, mermaids and pirates in street theatre, and the stilt walkers, Harold and Nellie.

Harold, whose real name is David Gooding, said he had never been knocked off his stilts. "All the children are very good to us and they'd soften the fall if I did."

The buskers and street theatre drew large, appreciative crowds.

Down at the Viaduct Harbour, "Bike Boy" Sean Bridges told the crowd this was the only job he had.

It became clear there were few rival applicants when he promised to sit on a bike almost 7m in the air to eat an apple, while juggling a sword and a contraption "blowing flames at my bottom".

The more he mocked the crowd, the more they loved him. "I cannot believe anyone here would be so stupid," he chided after they fell for his stunt of swallowing a sword made from a balloon.

He was just completing his final stunt - the bike on a pole - when the PA announced the presentation to Dean Barker, winner of the inaugural Auckland Match Racing Cup.

And because this was the City of Sails rather than City of Stunts, the barriers were quickly lined with people.