We set off on our roadtrip to Wonderland a week ago, and spent a night with Cathy and Clayton at the farm rather than get stuck in rush hour traffic. I woke to sunshine, glorious views and Escapee the mad chicken glaring at me through the window.
We set off early for SoBo [the area South of the Bombay hills] and headed for Hamilton, a farming town that welcomes you with the immortal line ‘Hamilton – more than you’d expect’. The further south you go the more New Zealandish it feels, and there are more signs of Kiwi eccentricity. Driving through the town of Tirau you are greeted with the Big Dog & the Big Sheep, and as you leave it's hard to miss the castle called Pamela.
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With the windows down we could hear the roar of the cicadas as we passed by thick pockets of trees. After blink and you’ll miss them villages and various small towns, we reached the great lake at Taupo backed by Ruapehu's snowy peaks. We pressed on south through Bulls, Foxton [the Foxtown!] and onto Wellington for our interview on the Radio Active drive show. The studios are in central Wellington with a great view over the harbour.
Next stop was the Wonderland site at Tunnel Gully Plateau in Upper Hutt. We pitched the tent, my head hit the pillow and I slept like a log while the crew watched Liquid Crystal Vision on a sheet hung from the trees. I fell asleep to the sound of the Morepork and woke to the Tui and the Bellbird. It was a scorching day, but there was no hot tempers in the closely knit crew. Many of them have worked on parties like Checkpoint Charlie and The Gathering, so know exactly what to do.
 | It was of the most enjoyable set ups I've ever done. My job was painting signs for the 6 Zones; Earth for tribal, Venus for house, Mars for drum & bass, Jupiter for trance, Neptune for chill & psy, Area 54 for the up and comings and my last minute addition Uranus - the toilet zone. |
| The gates opened at 10.00 p.m. to a flood of excited people. After a walk through the bush they were greeted by emerald green shafts of lasers piercing a diamond studded sky, jaws dropping as they saw Wonderland for the first time. I caught some of Minuit’s excellent live show before heading back down to the trance stage to film Chelfyn's set, stopping to watch the Taiko drummers, stiltwalkers and the aerial artist in the trees. |  |
Chelfyn kicked off after Helix, with the unreleased D.A.V.E. the Drummer remix of Oh Superman [by Laurie Anderson] followed by One night in Hackney, homegrown Kiwi tracks from TMet Recordings, and live drumming. I filmed a blur of lasers, lights, and hands in the air, with whoops and hollars from the crowd.
Watch a 1 minute video of Chelfyn Live @ Wonderland. [9MB]Before I knew it DJ Maya was dropping some blinding techno tracks and all too soon it was dawn. We had a breakfast of strawberries & bubbly with the crew and then fell asleep in the balmy afternoon. We woke to a triple rainbow at dusk.
There's some Wonderland pics up at Twisted, and Biggie [set 1 / set 2 / set 3]. | We spent our last night in Poirua with Mr Oz and his lovely wife Siobhan. UK DJ/Producer Mr Oz moved to New Zealand about 6 months after us and now lives overlooking a surf beach near Wellington. An international DJ, he was label manager at React and Lush Records, and one of the organisers of the Universe and Tribal Gathering parties, some of the biggest dance parties ever held in the UK. |
I asked him what the biggest one was - 35,000 tickets and a guest list of 6,000! More recently he was an extra in Lord of the Rings and at 6ft 6” may have been their tallest elf. Chelfyn had lots of fun playing with soft synths in Mr Oz's studio before we headed back to Auckland. We got back into the office to confirm three more bookings in February, and we're doing a TMet Room at Tidy NZ tomorrow. It’s already shaping up to be a very busy year!
