A devout Masterton fan of Northern Irish troubadour Van Morrison leaves this weekend for the star's hometown to help him celebrate his 70th birthday.
Electrician Max Croskery, himself of Irish stock, said he will take in several Morrison performances during his upcoming stay in Northern Ireland, including a couple of birthday concerts Van the Man is putting on in Belfast's Cyprus Ave, a street near where he was raised, which gave its name to a track included on his critically-acclaimed 1968 album Astral Weeks.
"The first time I discovered Morrison was something special was when I heard his album Into the Music in 1985. It sparked something but I never really took it any further," he said.
"Then one summer in the late 90s I was in Whakatane with my family and a record store had bargain CDs on a table out front. There was one there called Astral Weeks. It just blew my mind and I started collecting his albums and reading books about him, researching him. I was hooked."
In 2003, the father-of-two travelled with his family to Britain "when the opportunity came up to see him live" at a concert in York. He had also started gathering Morrison's studio works, most of which he now owns including Duets: Re-Working The Catalogue album released in March.