Posted off two albums to Switzerland today, to a chap who saw us at a live show in RAGLAN earlier in the year. He purchased Eight-Track Style, and says that he NEEDS MORE!!!

Awesome.

Also mailed off 2 albums to a Dr Feelgood fan in England, and 2 email enquiries from New Zealand, so after selling 40 Plus albums in the Bay of Islands, we are starting to get the cash together to pay for the NEW album (see previous post) which is quite exciting I can tell you.

Brilleaux have been invited to play at the WHANGAREI festival in October this year, and after a great festival last year, we cant wait.

ALSO I have just secured a gig in New Plymouth at the SURFRIDERS. They invited us to play for them a year or so ago, and have just organised to have us back again. This was a GREAT GIG, so if you live in New Plymouth, it will pay to get your tickets EARLY, as they have limited tickets available, and they sold out last year.

We have met lots of fantastic people from down there, and look forward to seeing some of them at the gig.

This year we will have a support band play before us, so it will be GREAT value, and a great nights entertainment.

Insight into our new album in progress

After playing to venues full of music lovers at the Bay of Island festival, your favourite New Zealand Rhythm and Blues band are straight back into rehearsals, putting together our new studio album.
3 songs already in our live playlist, and ready to record are Howlin Wolf, Son of a Bitch, and PHD In Stupidity.
Another new song which we tried out at the festival for the first time is "It Wasn't Me." We are now quite happy with this track also.
Another 3 songs are also well underway and almost made it to the playlist at the festival, but as we have never played at the Bay of Islands before, we wanted to hit the audiences with our best, tried and true numbers, and give them a taste of the Brilleaux show, so we decided not to treat them as guineapigs and left them out.
These tracks are: I wonder Why (I Cant Get No Sleep) - a track I co-wrote with Derek of Kokomo, and which appears on their last album, although Brilleaux intend to give it quite a different treatment to the Kokomo boys and girls.
Seven Shades of Surprised, and Angry Young Man. A track entitled "I Love Girls" is also undergoing treatment, and is going to be lots of fun to record I can tell now, as it is very progressive, and features a couple of interesting musical concepts that we havent used before.

We intend the new album to feature a lot of Piano and keyboards courtesy of our friend Tim Julian, who appears on our LIVE at the Colosseum album.

Bay of Islands Jazz and Blues Festival.

On the weekend of 10-12 August, 2007 Brilleaux appeared for the first time at the Bay of Island jazz and Blues Festival.

We left Tauranga at about 11am on the Friday, and arrived in the Bay at about 6, armed with a good stock of all our albums and a van full of guitars and guys hanging out to play some kick-ass rhythm and blues.

Beano was moonlighting for Kokomo, so we had the evening off to immerse ourselves in the sights and sound of the festival.

Kokomo played to a rapturous full house at the Lighthouse venue. They certainly are treated like superstars up there, and I must say it is totally deserved. Their performances, not to mention the quality of their songs are several steps up the ladder from many of the acts you get to see on the circuit, and with the full band (Mike Kirk on Electric guitar) Our Beano, and Sonia (Sonya) Bullot on trumpet all on stage, they blew the expectant crowd away, delivering MORE than the crowd were hoping to witness.

Brilleauxs first gig wasnt until 4.45 the following day, at the Duke Hotel on Russell, which is a ferry-ride away from the main township.

By the time we got to play the adrenaline was really kicking in, after watching so many good bands, we were ready to do our thing.

The venue - although packed to the gunnels - was mostly seated.
I proceeded to explain to the crowd HOW British Rhythm and Blues came to be, and HOW we could be associated with a blues festival like this one, before hitting them with our full noise version of Riding on the L&N. The rest of the gig was great, and we even threw in our very first performance of the song "It Wasn't Me" - a new original destined to appear on our new album.

Our second gig was at 9pm at Haruru Falls. A great venue, and this place was more packed than the first place.
We played Beer Goggles (with the theremin), AND POD at this gig.

Our final gig for the day was at The paihia pacific, and the auditorium was packed.
This was our best gig of the weekend, and the entire crowd was on its feet dancing.

At 4.45 we played our final show of the weekend at the same venue. appearing straight after Kokomo. The venue was packed inside and out.

I explained to the mixed-age crowd that I could appreciate how Bob Dylan must have felt when he turned up at the Newport jazz festival with his electric band. However, the crowd at this final gig of ours was there by choice - our reputation for delivering a full-on energetic show of driving rhythm and blues had preceeded us, and they loved every minute of it.

We sold a huge number of CDs over the weekend, which all goes to spread the good word.

We cant wait to go again next year.
Thanks to all you fans and supporters, and all those who purchased CDs - it all helps to bring our next album a little closer to completion.

We were treated like celebrities up there with people wanting to get photos taken with us and get our autographs - a very humbling experience.
Thank you to all the organisers, venues, and sound people involved - a great festival.