Rhythm and Vines Festival 2011

Ohhhhhh yeah! We’ve  just got back from Rhythm and Vines in little old New Zealand! So much went on over the 3 days. You might not have ever heard of this epic event so let us give you a little background first and then we’ll dive into the nitty gritty of who ended their musical 2011 in fine form and who was just plain old shit!

[The Set Up]
Rhythm and Vines started 9 years ago with a few mates, who wanted to get all their other mates together for a New Year’s party. So why not do it at the family’s vineyard, a.k.a Waiohika Estate Gisborne. Back in the day of 2003 they had 1800 people rock up; on New Year’s Eve 2011 it blew out to 30,000 people (including R&V peps). Chuck that into a scatter graph- it’ll blow your mind

Calvin Harris 

[Ditch The Wallet]
When you arrive you are given a wristband that is fitted with a chip which lets you in to the festival, the beauty of it is you can load it up with money and ditch your wallet! Any purchases you make they just scan your wristband and it’s paid for.

Pendulum

[The Line Up]
Here’s a summary of how things shaped up over the 3 days.

Day 1:
Hip-hop legend Grandmaster Flash wowed the crowds with a huge set of bangers. Local songstress Zowie turned it up on the main stage followed by Melbourne’s Architecture In Helsinki, Brisbane’s Sampology and headliner Pendulum.

Day 2:
Local hiphop favourites, Homebrew kicked off the evening activities, Six60 took to the stage with the main field splitting at the seams – finishing with their huge hit, Rise Up 2.0. The evening included Cut Copy, A-Skillz and some randoms we’d never heard of before. The highlight of the evening was Calvin Harris. His DJ set smashed it out of the park; no one wanted him to stop.

Day 3:
It was a sold out event again for Rhythm and Vines, the evenings line-up included The Thomas Oliver Band, Skream & Benga,  David Dallas and Kids of 88, bringing in the New Year was Example and DJ Wire, Netsky, Sons of Vegas and Jack Beats.

Main Stage

[Who’s Hot]
The stand out artists for us was Calvin Harris, the guy knows how to entertain, to be honest he should have been playing on New Year’s as opposed to playing earlier on in the festival.  One band that took us by surprise and we’ve fallen in love with is Six60. They started out in a crappy flat in Dunedin played a few gigs around the place, and have since become famous. They come across as average Joes, but they sure know how to perform and entertain.

Erick Morillo

[The End]
Rhythm and Vines stands out as one the premier events of the year, and we’ll be going back for more especially for their 10 year anniversary. We were impressed with the running of R&V, they have a broad range of artists and know how to rock a festival

If you head into town Gisborne is a little place, with the run of the mill shops. There are some sights to see, we spent a lot of time on the nice beaches nursing hangovers and drinking coffee.

[One More Thing]
If you’re going across the ditch to New Zealand (btw there were a lot Aussies at R&V) you might want to check out BW Camp. (about 20mins from R&V) BW Camp is where you can camp and has more artists. You can get tickets that will get you in to both R&V and BW Camp so you can maximise your time while you’re there.

The Vines Stage

Photography: irfrazer
Paul Hoelen / Connor Crawford

Tagged Festivals, new zealand, rhythm and vines