The Aviators at the Wellington Botanic Gardens

Paddy Bleakley, Ned Worboys & David McGurk from The Aviators funking it up.

Way back in January I headed off to the ABS Garden Magic Concert Series at the Wellington Botanic Gardens in New Zealand to see The Aviators play & shoot some photos. I’ve only just managed to go through the photos after giving my archive a much needed clean out, & thought the photos were worth posting.

The Aviators are probably Wellington’s best known funk band, & on this particular evening they were perhaps Wellington’s luckiest band too. The 2010 ABS Garden Magic Concert Series had been a washout & there were many cancellations on the other nights due to Wellington’s unpredictable weather, but this night was different. It was a perfect summers day in the capital, & the crowds had flocked to the Botanic Gardens with their picnic mats & chilly bins in tow.

The Aviators kicked off their set with the crowd instantly responding as revelers headed up to the get a spot on the makeshift dance floor. The seven piece band funked & jammed it up as the dance floor crowd grooved along. Everyone else squeezed into the limited space on the grass lawns & lined the paths as the funky beats reverberated throughout the botanic gardens. It was certainly a great way to end a perfect summers day…

I shot all the photos on a canon 5D markII using a 70-200mm f2.8 lens for the band shots & a 50mm f1.4 lens for the wider shots of the crowds around the gardens. The light that afternoon was pretty amazing too.

Check out the slide show below of all the photos, & if you’d like to see a larger version of a particular photo, just click on it in the slide show or go here to see them all.

The Aviators | Wellington | New Zealand – Images by Mark Gee

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 8:04 am and is filed under photos | music and tagged with 2010, ABS Garden Magic Concert Series, Band, botanical gardens, Concert, funk, new zealand, photos | music, The Aviators, wellington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.