After a massive 2016, Airlie Beach based Funk Roots Reggae act Sun Salute return to Cairns for a massive weekend of shows including the Waitangi Day Celebrations at Barlow Park on Saturday 11th Febuary. Having recently perfomned at Woodford Folk Festival over new years, the band also visted Cairns multiple times last year for perfomances at Eco Fiesta and as a support act for Katchafire.
The band is increasingly popular in the North, having been regulars on the festival circuit over many years. Speaking to Guitarist/Trumpet player Chris Booroff, he was increasingly excited about the weekend ahead in Cairns.
“We love coming to Cairns, I think our biggest fanbase is around the Cairns and Port Douglas area. We always get a huge response from our audience, and always have a great time. The positive energy we try to give out is returned to us in massive proportions when we perform up north. It’s why we keep coming back!”.
With a big weekend of gigs ahead, the band will perform at the Waitangi Day Celebrations at Barlow Park on Saturday afternoon, and the official Afterparty at The Jack in the evening.
“Most of our music is written by Hayden Weke, who is from New Zealand. Really the biggest flavour in our band is New Zealand Reggae so Waitangi Day is a very big deal for us for that reason”.
With a new album in the works and an increasingly busy tour schedule, 2017 is set to be a big year for Sun Salute.
“We’re currently in the final stages of recording our album. We started this a few months back when we travelled to Nicky Bomba’s studio in Harrietville – about 3 hours out of Melbourne. There we laid down all the instrumentals of the album we’d been working on. We are currently recording vocal tracks, mixing and mastering. We plan to release the album sometime in the next few months. We have another tour in the Byron / Noosa area in April, and are going to be announcing the festivals we will be playing this year very soon. We’re also looking at a New Zealand tour towards the end of the year.”
Having supported Katchafire on their recent North Queensland tour, the band will retrun to The Jack on Saturday night for the official Waitangi Day Afterparty.
It was awesome experience to tour with Katchafire, the crowd really dug our music and we were very welcomed by their audience. Each night we had the place pumping! Not only were the shows awesome, the other highlight was hanging out with the Katchafire boys. They were super friendly and we all bonded really well. We look up to them as musicians a lot, so it was an honour to get to know them and hear about their journey. The other guys on the road with us were L.A.B. They were also legends. As an English musician lost in Australia, I found it incredible to witness the New Zealand culture of music first hand by hanging out with all these incredible musicians from New Zealand. On our last night we had a huge jam in the hotel, everyone was singing different harmonies ; I’ve never heard anything like it!”
Sun Salute perform at:
Friday 10th Feb at Paddys in Port Douglas
Sat 11th Feb at Waitangi Day – Barlow Park (daytime show)
Sat 11th Feb at Waitangi Day Offical After Party at The Jack (evening show)
Sun 12th Feb at Salt House. 5pm till 8pm
Mitch Sullivan
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