Byron Bay Gig Guide - Music, Entertainment and Events in Byron

Nicky Bomba sits alone onstage behind his drumkit. His dreadlocks bounce as he takes us through a global journey of beats, sampling sounds from Africa, Jamaica, Brazil and New Orleans. Good as it sounds, I'm hopeful the other instruments onstage will be played by others, and into the second song I am not disappointed. Bomba is joined onstage by a double bass player, and another drummer, while he himself takes up the guitar to sing about a Rocksteady Woman. Two more guys join him onstage to play the Djembe, casually ignoring a wayward blonde in a red dress who also climbs onstage and gracefully dances behind them. Usually security are good at stopping people doing that, but no-one does, and she leaves the stage when she wants.
It's a chilled, happy hippie kinda vibe at the Northern tonight. Bomba goes acoustic and leads his drumming crew onto the dancefloor. The crowd becomes excited and then chills out and sits on the ground. It's an unusual sight - crouching Nicky Bomba playing the wooden dancefloor with his drumsticks, bathed in coloured light, the crowd seated on the floor chanting around him. He gracefully accepts a beer placed on his drum skin by an idiot who walks into the centre of the group, and then goes onstage to play Bomba's drums up there. Again - no security to stop him, the performers get his attention and he sees enough sense to stop. There's no aggro, Bomba smiles the whole night, which was overall an enjoyable performance.
Have a listen on his Myspace.

Dance-rock can be either very danceable, very carefree and can leave you with a blissful hour of moving to sounds, lights and colours (important things in life) or it can be emotionless, flat electronic crap about nothing. Now it can be argued that Cut Copy’s music is not about anything important but don’t tell that to the people of Byron.
Clearly at home in the Great Northern, Cut Copy sounded fantastic, their music was crisp and the vocals floated well above the chaos of bodies in the Backroom. The important thing to remember is that dance rock rarely claims to be something its not, and when Lights and Music started playing you could literally taste the freedom as everyone’s problems seemed so far away. At least for a few minutes.
Finally the song everyone held out for, Hearts on Fire drew a big response and the mosh became moshier as Dan Whitford pondered, “theres something in the air tonight”, with that line he had everyone at the gig on one page. Byron loved it and when Whitford sang “I reach out to you tonight”, he was definitely pointing to me.
Simon Stonehouse
Cut Copy image taken without permission from their Myspace page.

The first time I heard about Solid Gold I thought it sounded dodgy. The more people told me it was really fun, the more I thought, yeah.. you were probably off ya chops.  It wasn't until I experienced Solid Gold that I understood the many joys it brings. Reliving your childhood through the music your parents listened to. Dressing up in disco clothing. The comforting familiarity of knowing all the words to crappy (and not so crappy) songs. Watching the Solid Gold dancers and old music videos. Maybe winning a best dressed prize.  This party has a cult local following. You can check the photos on the photo page.