Bands named for New Year’s Eve

Dunedin (Thursday 3 October 2013) – Local bands Tahu and the Takahes, Girl Friday and Cougar Zoo have been named as the acts at Dunedin’s New Year’s Eve concert in the Octagon.

The celebration is a free, safe and community-focused event for all ages.

Tahu and the Takahes, which will take the 8pm – 9.15pm slot is a band with a deep-south country blues flavor led by the inimitable Tahu Mackenzie, whose free-spirited musical passion gives the band its unmistakable focal point. The band said “This nine-piece promises to get you smiling, laughing and dancing inside and out with their infectious blues funk story songs.”

They will be followed from 9.20pm to 10.40pm by Girl Friday, a local rock covers band led by Di Leonard on lead vocals and as band manager. She has been singing since 1983 and loves the rock chick genre. Comment from the band when asked was “Girl Friday is super excited about rocking up the Octagon on New Year’s Eve. We want to provide some positive energy to this event for people to come down, and join the atmosphere.”

Feature act Cougar Zoo will follow from 10.45pm – midnight. Cougar Zoo is made up of four guys who play a range of classic hits through to modern chart toppers with a blend of funk, pop, reggae, soul and rock’n roll. The band members say they are looking forward to entertaining Dunedin into the New Year.

The support acts were selected from ten local bands that auditioned for the gig. A seven-person panel was set up representing a range of age groups including under 20 and over 60 age groups along with the sound engineer contracted to the event. They listened to and rated the bands’ demo CDs and used the ratings to choose the successful acts.

Strawberry Sound technical engineer Gordon Duff says the result is a good mix of bands.

ENDS

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