WHAKATANE Ukulele band the Ebop-a-leles took to the road on their first tour last weekend.
The Ebop-a-leles Goodwill Tour had originally been organised to include eight gigs between Whakatane, Gisborne, Napier and Taupo, over four days but had to be shortened to five gigs after a slip blocked the road through Waioeka Gorge.
The 14-person tour still left Whakatane on Friday morning for its first gig at Kutarere School and Opotiki Primary as scheduled. But tour organiser John Baker says it was just a dry run, and as the road was closed they were not able to continue to Matawai School in the afternoon and the Gisborne Ukulele Underground that evening as planned.
Instead, they returned to Whakatane that night, before heading off again to Rotorua the next day. Some last-minute bookings meant they were able to include two Rotorua resthomes, Redwoods and Cantabria House, in the schedule to replace the four gigs they had planned for Gisborne and Napier.
They stayed overnight in Rotorua before continuing on to their Taupo gigs, returning Monday night.
Band member Barry Caulfield provided transport for the tour with his 18-seater bus and says they had even had some decals make with Ebop-a-leles On Tour for the back window of the bus.
“I think of it as a goodwill tour,” John says. “We are all products of Whakatane and all of our playing is goodwill playing. We have a lot of people who give up their time every week to go and entertain people, mainly elderly people.”
He says the group meets every Monday night to practise and anybody is free to go along to these meetings, which are held at the Whakatane Sportfishing Club.
“We can get about 20 people or more there. Then we’ve got a performance group, which is a lot smaller. There are only about 10 or 12 in that.”
He says the band has been together for about five years and he has been planning a tour for some time.
“It’s quite an exciting time for us really. I had an idea that I wanted to do a trip down one side of the North Island playing at old people’s homes along the way, play our way across on the ferry to Picton, play at the old people’s homes there and Blenheim and back up the other side of the island.
“But the group decided that was a little bit too long away from home, so we decided to do a four-day trip and everyone jumped at that idea.”
