Auckland Folk Festival for 2026 featured some broad-ranging performances from the likes of Bazurka, Dragkroka, Turkey the Bird, lots of Bluegrass, with some original English Rap.The inclement weather relented in the afternoon, and the sun was out as a blessing. Fierce wind gusts adding to the wild and tempestuous sounds.
Jennifer Reid proves to us that the oral tradition of Rap and Hip-hop have much older roots than New York City in the Seventies.
A British artist who is an avid researcher of the original spoken word broadside ballads from the nineteenth century of Lancashire and Victorian England.
I was fortunate to catch her when she played at the Bunker Folk club in Devonport in autumn last year.
Storytelling songs done acapella with a strong rhythmic emphasis. We all got blue-blind paralytic drunk.
Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night is an even faster shotgun delivery and dates to the mid-1800’s.
Later at the Showcase concert on Sunday evening, she graces us with some energetic clog dancing which seems curiously similar to Irish Celtic dance.
Bazurka present Balkan music in a mash-up form and sound quite exotic but they all come from Wellington.
The trumpet player sounds uncannily like Mexican mariachi as I roll up to the Village stage. But it’s the drummer that dictates the tempo and adds wild flourishes and codas.
I can reliably identify Briar Pastiti as the lead singer on the songs that require vocals. She begins with a portentous lament on a Serbian song. The pace picks up with a flamenco-styled acoustic guitar break. At the bridge the speed is increased to furious double-picking sounding a lot like the original Surf music of Dick Dale.
A Bulgarian tune begins with some marshall drum fills. An overriding feel of jazzy Klezmer elements as the trumpet and fiddle duel it out.
Its not all fast and tight as at least one of the songs has a high keening lament.
Turkey The Bird are a hirsute trio all decked out in leopard skin clothes from head to toe. From New Plymouth (the home of WOMAD), the one native New Zealander is Sol Bear Coulton on banjo.
Andre Manella (acoustic guitar) is Swiss and Adrian Whelan (mandolin) is of Irish origin.
Their showstopper is a version of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. They divide the audience into three parts and infuse it with so much energy that it keeps exploding at the chorus.
Banjo is a feature of their sound, and they can be likened to an exuberant Mumford and Sons.
Stonewall Creek borrows some of the riffs from Dick Dale’s Miserlou. Surf music mixed in with an older Irish Celtic rhythm riffs.
Everybody Needs a Little Sunshine. What they remind me of is the late Sixties era of Folk Rock, strong harmonies and generally effervescent bubbling tunes.
They can turn traditional reels into a modern-day stomp.
Dragkroka brings the sound of the Nordic countries. They can play slow and thoughtful to fast and intricate. Their disco evening late night spot was a hit on Saturday with the late-night revellers.
Henry Burtonwood is the fiddle player and is a Kiwi. Passionate about the intricacies of Nordic music, he travelled to Sweden to immerse himself in the culture.
Rasmus Hemstrom is Swedish and plays an unusual instrument called a nyckelharpa. This is a bowed instrument consisting of sixteen strings, with twelve of those becoming sympathetic. A high keening sound often which blends well with the fiddle.
Third member Alfred Bergkvist plays a slightly more conventional stringed instrument called a cittern. A big resonator and eight strings resembling an oud.
A nyckelharpa solo sounds like chamber music. When fiddle joins in it lays out a peaceful pastoral tone.
Over at the Bluegrass session on the Village stage, I managed to catch Alan Young, one of the veterans of all manner of Folk music with a heavy emphasis on a variety of original Blues tunes.
He did a couple of songs with an autoharp, including a great old one from the Original Carter Family. Crying, what have I done/ I have killed my brakeman. It rings out and chimes.
Then he picks up what looks like a steel-bodied acoustic guitar, and with a slider plays at wonderful version of Blind Alfred Reed’s How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.
Celtic Ferret are also long-time stalwarts of the Folk scene in New Zealand and with Ian Bartlett on flute and uilleann pipes, and Jean Reid with her distinctive Scottish accent.
Reid carries a particularly poignant tune dedicated to The Dressmaker. She works til the light sputters low.
The weather was to add to the wild and tempetstous nature of the music. Wild in the sense of merry and often ribald.
This Auckland Folk Festival 2026 was generally a triumph in spirit and soul.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by Den
Deleted:
