Bob's Big Eight-0

BOB'S BIG EIGHT-0 – ARTS | LAVEN | JACOMBS | MASTERS
Sunday 23 May 2.30 – 5.30pm (doors 2.30 pm | show 3 pm)

It's Bob Dylan's 80th birthday on May 24 and four of Tauranga's most respected musicians are getting together to mark the event. Marion Arts, Robbie Laven, Derek Jacombs and Nigel Masters will be performing separately and together, presenting a unique afternoon of Bob Dylan songs, drawn from early sixties classics through many decades of brilliant songwriting. Come and celebrate Bob's Big Eight-O!

Marion Arts has done so many striking musical things it's hard to know where to start. She fronted seminal Kiwi band Red Hot Peppers in the seventies, played for five years throughout Europe, has released albums on Ode Records and sung with the 1932 Jazz Orchestra. Back in Tauranga she has been active with swing band The Glamorous Mrs B, with Gypsy jazz group Bonjour Swing and in many other musical combinations while releasing a series of albums stretching from folk to classical to jazz.

Robbie Laven is the Bay's most celebrated multi-instrumentalists with a long history on the New Zealand music scene stretching from the Red Hot Peppers to The Remarkables, from the Blarney Boys and The Whittakers to Bonjour Swing. He plays blues, Celtic music, gypsy jazz, pretty much anything you can think of – a true legend of the New Zealand music scene. Expect mandolin, fiddle, guitar, lap steel and much more...

Singer/guitarist Derek Jacombs has for the past few years fronted New Zealand's favourite blues 'n' roots band Kokomo while playing with Nigel Masters in duo The Self-Righteous Brothers. With these bands he has released some 15 albums, mainly of his own original songs. In 2006 Kokomo released “In The Well” a collection of Bob Dylan songs and Derek has recorded many more Bob tunes and seen the man live around 20 times. He was part of Nick Bollinger's 2020 National Radio discussion of Bob Dylan's latest album alongside Reb Fountain.

Nigel Masters is the Bay's most in-demand bass player. As well as playing bass for Kokomo and The Self-Righteous Brothers he has recorded and toured with the likes of Jan Preston, Electric Universe, Richard O'Brien, Shona Laing, Dr Jaz, B-Side Band and many others, while running Tauranga's oldest recording studio The Boatshed.