Saturday 12 July, 8pm

Entry $15/$10.

The Back Room, Toi Ponek

With a family of 7 children ranging from 8-20 years old they make a band of 9, playing a mixture of traditional  folk, Irish, own composition material, mostly using  acoustic violins, cello, guitars, flutes, drums and  keyboard/piano.

They have been putting on an annual concert for the last 12 years which has grown from being originally a living room  affair to doting grandparents to more group-type items where we've lately needed auditoriums catering for  the 800 plus crowd they  generated last year. They have used the annual concerts in the past to raise money for various  charities - local children's hospital, displaced children  in East Timor, earthquake victims in Afghanistan etc.

They played recently at a local bluegrass club and were  spotted by Bob Everhart who was touring New Zealand at the  time. He has run the US National Traditional Country Music Association annual festival in Le Mars, Iowa for the past 30 years. He was sufficiently taken with their performance  that he invited them to play centre-stage at this year's festival 29-31 August 2008.