Rockquest
This year’s Rockquest was a very successful venture
for the school. The hard work from everyone involved,
not only showed in the results, with a large portion of the
finalists coming from the school, but also in the
performances.
This made for a rather interesting experience because
have you ever tried to fit a large number of tense teens
into a hot, incredibly humid, confined and loud room?
The answer for that should hopefully be no, and with
good reason! The backstage talk, though, was just as
fun as the onstage experience, even in the rather unRockquest heats kicked off in mid May which attracted a comfortable conditions. After all the bands had finished
we headed back to our room to wait in eager anticipalarge number of bands. It was an obviously difficult task
tion. We were called back onstage to find out the reto pick only 10 bands. Months of practise had precedsults. The fact that when you looked across the stage,
ed it and everyone really showed that they were very
and half of the faces up there, were ones you saw
capable musicians. It started mid-morning and went
every day around the school was a real achievement
through till late afternoon. I was knackered by the end
in itself. The awards were slowly being announced.
simply from the excitement. When the judge’s decisions
were announced, I was delighted to learn there were five The tension was visibly building on stage. A night of
pretty stellar performances, from all, was capped with
bands from Havelock North High School.
first place being given to a Havelock North high school
band.
It was only a couple of weeks and we were off to the
I suppose with half of the acts being from Havelock
Napier municipal theatre to compete in the finals. The
nerves of the heats were dwarfed by the pure energy that North high school, the odds were a bit in our favour.
was building in the backstage rooms. All the Havelock
Jake O’Herlihy
North high school bands shared a single room.
Rockquest
Back Row: Campbell Hay, Hugh McKendrey, Tom Smith, Matt Nisbet,
Arran Cargill-Brown
2nd Row: Rhys Hantler, Shane Wichman, Cieran Phillips, Zach Taylor
Front Row: Kim Percival, Tom Hosford, Jake O’Herlihy, Eddie Roberts,
Kaya Shaw-Throp