Playing The Blues In The New Schoolyard
Griffith University recently played sponsor to the awesome Schoolyard Blues concert held on the Victoria Park main stage as part of the annual Blues on Broadbeach music festival for 2016.
The Schoolyard Blues concert gives young musicians from schools around the Gold Coast and Brisbane the chance to perform live at one of the countries most popular free music events.
Fortunately for me, I was invited to come along and photograph (see my work below) the event and capture the bands as they performed on day two of the Blues on Broadbeach festival, Friday 19 May.
The concert was early being a schoolyard blues day, so I got down there even earlier to dip my toes in the sea and the sand of Broadbeach first and share a few sunrise pics on @Griffithsnaps, which I have to say was a rad idea as it was just the most beautiful Gold Coast day.
At 9am, Christo from 102.9 Hot Tomato introducing the first act of the day, Trinity Lutheran College’s Big Band. From there Trinity introduced two more acts, their Rock Band and also the schools 1950’s inspired song and dance group, Fusion.
Throughout the day talented students from Guardian Angels Primary School, Aquinas College, Kingston State College, Nerang State High School, St Hilda’s School, Padua College rocked the stage and kept audiences dancing.
Particular highlights for me were Nerang High’s ‘famous’ Funk Band and Aquinas College; both groups absolutely nailed their sets.
Nerang’s amazing vocalists accompanied by a group of gifted musicians definitely drew a crowd for their soul-filled set, while the girls from Aquinas belted out an awesome rendition of Amy Winehouse’s ‘Valerie’.
So, it was a pretty amazing day overall.
Southeast Queensland schools have so many talented young artists that are just waiting to be discovered. Hopefully one day I’ll be photographing some of these kids at festivals like Laneway or Splendour!
It was a tough gig, but someone had to do it.
By Tonia Wright, photographer and student blogger with the Griffith Social Media team