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Te
Vaka live at Apia Park DVD
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96
minutes of Te Vaka live in concert with
Dolby digital stereo sound
plus....
* Te Vaka music video clips
* Video clip filming bloopers
* Te Vaka is officially welcomed to
Samoa
* Te Vaka visits schools in Samoa
* Soundcheck before the concert and
..more
Technical Details:
Region code: PAL & NTSC all regions
Disc format: DVD 9 Dual layer
Audio: Digital Stereo 2.0
Total duration: 2.5 hours approx |
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DVD
REVIEWS
Live at Apia Park DVD (Warm Earth Records WMDVD
1004
An Emotional homecoming gig from a
group well-suited to DVD
Te Vaka (it means ‘the canoe’) are by
far the best of modern Polynesian bands, as
anyone who has caught them live at WOMAD or
elsewhere will testify. Blending musical styles
from across the Pacific region with Western rock
influences and using traditional slit-log and
skin drums alongside kit-drums, bass and guitars,
they’re impressive enough on CD. But if ever
the DVD format was tailormade to showcase a
band’s skills, it has to be Te Vaka, for
their dancing and on-stage exuberance are
integral and dramatic elements of what they do.
In
August last year, the band travelled from New
Zealand, where they are now based, to the island
of Samoa for what was, in effect, a triumphant
homecoming after five years of international
touring. There they played in Apia Park, where
more than 20,000 turned out to greet them. It was
an emotionally charged occasion and the cameras
were there to capture the electricity in the
night air as the group performed 20 numbers in
what was a joyous celebration rather than just a
concert. They deliver more than an hour and a
half’s worth of powerful music. But just as
fascinating is another hour of travelogue-style
material, following the band around Samoa, where
they visit local villages and schools.
Nigel
Williamson
SONGLINES
MAGAZINE UK www.songlines.co.uk
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The New Zealand
Musician Magazine June/July 2003
DVD REVIEW Te Vaka: Live at Apia Park
Te Vaka play on the world music circuit,
regularly traversing the globe. The gods smiled
when the group got to perform before a huge crowd
in a ground breaking concert in Samoa. The back
notes tell the story best.
'On the 31st of August 2002, over 20,000 people
gathered in Apia Park for the biggest live
concert ever to be held in Samoa. After 5 years
of international touring and performing in over
30 countries, the band had come full circle and
for many members of the group this event was a
homecoming. The atmosphere on the night was
electric. The audience witnessed something very
special as Apia Park reverberated to the
powerful, tribal and unique sound that can only
be Te Vaka'
Indeed a Te Vaka concert is special, a true blend
of music, dance, spectacle and emotion - and in
that sense this is a typical Te Vaka concert. It
varies from moments of high energy and bpm log
drumming to the mellowing acoustic guitar-led
folk songs of the leader Opetaia Foa' i, to the
intoxicating serenity of the dance and female
voice dominated love songs.
Multiple video cameras were in use providing
plenty of good angles though hardly crystal
clear. Some of the editing is a little quickfire
too, but on the whole it maintains a sense of
movement that suits the music.
The 20 songs played in the 90 minute concert are
also directly accessible via a song list, as are
three videos. Pate Pate is a fun NZ on
Air funded travelogue, shot in exotic locations
all around the world. Lua afe is also an
NZOA video, this one much more stylised and
atmospheric with imagery of Samoan tattooing. The
third, Papa e is an arty, waves on the
shore type number.
There are a few software flaws minor enough not
to really affect the viewing pleasure of those
who want to remember the energy and pleasure of a
Te Vaka concert. This was surely one of their
best.
NEW ZEALAND MUSICIAN MAGAZINE www.nzmusician.co.nz
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FROOTS MAGAZINE
AUG/SEPT 2003
TE VAKA
Live at Apia Park Warm Earth Records
WMDVD 1004
The first DVD from New Zealand’s leading
‘contemporary Pacific’ group, documents
an historic event for them. Lead singer and
writer Opetaia Foa’i was born in Samoa to a
Tokelauan father and a Tuvaluan mother, and Live
at Apia Park includes the entire footage of their
triumphant first ever gig on ‘home
ground’. There’s also some quaint, but
rather shakily edited footage of associated
events in the ‘other stuff’ section.
One rather amusing clip shows the band being
escorted to their official Samoan welcome by a
woozy police brass band, unsure how to march to
their rhythms. Then there are lengthy and less
than essential scenes of a ceremonial travelogue
or home movie nature, plus ‘video
bloopers’ committed during the filming of a
forthcoming video for the song Tamatoa - Te
Vaka’s tribute to diminutive Samoan boxing
celebrity, David Tua.
On a more professional note, the band’s
three other videos to date bulk up an already
generous DVD, the centrepiece of which is 96
minutes of onstage action in front of 20,000
jubilant fans. Given the nature of the event,
it’s essentially a greatest hits package
showcasing 20 songs drawn from the three albums
they’ve made since 1995. Since they’re
catering to a Pacific Island crowd, it’s a
more pop/dance orientated set than their more
typical European ‘world music audience is
probably used to, although there are still plenty
of their trademark log drum workouts and dance
routines. And the quality of filming and editing
here makes up for the rough-cut nature of other
parts of the programme.
The grins worn by both the performers and the
people they’re playing to, tell you all you
need to know about the atmosphere. As a memento
of such an important occasion, it’s likely
to appeal to hardcore fans or those lucky enough
to be present, and it gives promoters a good idea
if what to expect from Te Vaka’s
exhilarating shows. Still, there’s no
substitute for actually being there......
Jon Lusk FROOTS MAGAZINE www.frootsmag.com
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THE NEW ZEALAND
HERALD * Thursday, April 17, 2003
>>Review
> Who: Te Vaka
> What: Live at Apia Park (Warm Earth DVD)
> Reviewer: Graham Reid
We’ve said it before, but this concert DVD -
with extra footage - confirms it again: Te Vaka
are more world famous than they are acknowledged
at home.
Not entirely our fault, however. Since their
formation this big, disciplined, entertaining and
musically gifted pan-Pacific group have taken
their vibrant, colourful stage act abroad and
seldom play here.
This concert was filmed before a crowd of 20,000
in Apia last August. Big bands seldom make it to
Samoa, least of all one like Te Vaka whose music
combines a pop-smart guitar chime with Polynesian
drums, harmonies and rhythms. Concert footage can
often be tedious but here, through half a dozen
cameras, excellent and colourful stage lighting,
washes of smoke and an excited crowd, it conveys
a memorable, historic, 90 minute performance.
For some band members this was also an emotional
homecoming, but the additional footage of
welcomes and giftgiving by the hosts, the band
clowning about in Aggie Grey’s Pool and so
on are more like home movies for the group and
the folks in Samoa.
But the concert confirms Te Vaka’s status as
the premier cross-cultural band out of the South
Pacific, and that they have a catalogue of
uniformly excellent songs to draw on - which they
are taking to Europe again in June. Those lucky
northerners.
THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD NEWSPAPER www.nzherald.co.nz
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REAL GROOVE MAGAZINE June 2003
TE VAKA
Live at Apia Park (Warm Earth)
Te Vaka earn most of their rave reviews far away
from the South Pacific, on the world music
festival circuit, where they have been lauded by
reviewers from The Guardian, the Evening Standard
and, interestingly, Wired magazine.
You don’t manage five years’ touring
without (literally) having your act together, but
it must have taken a good deal of nerve to make
the centrepiece of this DVD - a concert before a
crowd of 20,000 in Apia Park, Samoa - even
happen. That they’ve turned it around into
this nicely-produced DVD is a further tribute to
Te Vaka’s organisation.
Te Vaka’s show is South Pacific
rock’n’soul; log drums and electric
guitars, theatre and, not least, some babes and
beefcake. The Apia Park concert develops momentum
over it’s 96 minutes, with the crowd dancing
and cheering wildly by the end. Apart from fuzzy
long shots of the stage, the video is good and
the Dolby Stereo sound recordings are excellent.
Three cheap and cheerful video clips and the
information on the band round out the package.
It'll inevitably do more business in Europe than
it does here, but Te Vaka’s DVD, made in
Titirangi, is a good one,
RUSSELL BROWN
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