Kiwi Night

Rip It Up, Issue 85, 1 August 1984, Page 2

Kiwi Night

Once a year for the last three years expatriate New Zealanders in Sydney have gathered for a ritual that must surely perplex the locals Kiwi Night at the Tivoli. Along with performances from some of the expatriate Kiwi musicians (of whom there are apparently a considerable number) the night’s highlights are the talent quest and the Memorial Jimi Hendrix Guitar solo contest in which axemen have 16 bars "to raise the holy soul of Hendrix." Prizes for both include delicacies like peanut slabs, bluff oysters, Watties baked beans (far superior to the Australian bean, we we’re told) and DB Lager.

The nights are the brainchild of Arthur Baysting, aka Neville "On the Level” Purvis is dusted off and wheeled out but once a year these days and this is it. Last year saw such luminaries as Fane Flaws, Jenny Morris, Peter Marshall, Marc Hunter, Mike Caen and Dave Dobbyn. Dobbyn competed in both the talent quest and the Hendrix contest (as The Hendrix Brothers with Caen) but failed to win a place. The guitar solo contest was instituted following the uncovering of the fact that Jimi Hendrix’s grandfather was a Maori musician named Wi Wharekura who met the great man’s grandmother in New Orleans in 1929, thus making Hendrix a quarter Maori. The organisers claim that the Maori proverb "Nga hau e wha Aorangi” can be translated as "Excuse me while I kiss the sky.” The current champion is Paul Maake who not only does a good musical impression of Hendrix but also bears an uncanny physical resemblance. His 16 bars began with the classic ‘Star Spangled Banner' solo which he worked into God Defend New Zealand'. This year’s Kiwi Night will be held in either the last week of November or the first week of December. The way things are going it’s odds on there’ll be an even bigger contingent there for the hilarity than last time. Will RWP be there? RB