Fat Freddy gets set to drop in

Wairarapa gets a double helping of Fat Freddy's Drop in February as part of the Classic Hits Winery Tour 2013.

The seven-piece Wellington band last played the region in the mud and merriment of the La De Da 2012 New Year Festival in Martinborough.

Saxophonist Scott Towers compared the event to other gigs the band played at Glastonbury in 2007 and Coromandel this year.

"La De Da was almost as muddy as Glastonbury when we played there and we had the same at Coro Gold in the Coromandel. But Kiwis seem to just deal with the fact that they're muddy and soaked to the skin and get on with it."

Anika, Boh & Hollie also play the 17-date nationwide winery tour along with The Adults featuring Jon Toogood, Julia Deans and Shayne Carter.

Towers is hoping the upcoming Wairarapa gigs - Alana Estate vineyard in Martinborough on February 9 and Tui Brewery in Mangatainoka on February 10 - will escape the rain.

"There can't be any rain this time around. I can't wait to see all those grumpy old brewers in their bikinis at Mangatainoka."

Towers said he started playing saxophone as a schoolboy and was a classmate at music school of Featherston-based musician and fellow sax player Warren Maxwell, who he replaced in the band in 2007.

"Warren is a good friend. I visit him quite often in Featherston. We went through music school together and there's some continuity about me joining the band after him."

Towers said the band in February also will drop Blackbird, their third full-length studio album, and most tracks on the upcoming release have been generated and developed during their live sets.

The set list for the winery tour, he said, will range through live versions of the latest studio songs, a selection of older material from their back catalogue and new tunes as well.

"At the moment our focus is the new album we're about to release and harnessing our live performances and shaping that into studio songs.

"We can spend 12 to 18 months playing a repertoire and it's an interesting process when different parts of the same song develop at a different pace. Then sometimes a live song doesn't work in the studio."

Towers said the tour audiences also play a vital part in the translation to the studio of live tunes.

Tickets and bus and ticket packages went sale last month for the winery tour gigs and can be purchased at Ticketmaster and from the Winery Tour website at www.winerytour.co.nz.

BE IN TO WIN We have two double-passes to the Classic Hits Winery Tour to give away, one for the Alana Estate show on February 9, and one to the Tui Brewery event on February 10.

To be in the draw, email your name, address and phone number to event@age.co.nz, with Winery Tour in the subject line, or post to Winery Tour, Wairarapa Times-Age, PO Box 445, Masterton. Please remember to include which show you'd like tickets to. Tickets will be drawn on December 11.