Not just a festival for music, art and culture lovers but a British institution, Glastonbury Festival is easily one of the biggest open-air music festivals in the world.
Since its inaugural event in 1970, Glastonbury headliners include the likes of David Bowie, Neil Young and Bob Dylan right through to Jay-Z, Beyonce, and this year, Metallica and Raglan’s own Cornerstone Roots will be taking the road to Pilton, Somerset to perform at the legendary event.
Cornerstone’s journey to Glastonbury has been “three, four years in the making,” says bassist Naomi Tuao. Meeting one of the bookers for the festival a few years ago, and giving him some of their CDs, there was also local connection through Victoria Connell that also helped the eventual outcome.
Licensing their second album ‘Free Yourself’ to Berlin based Crazy Planet Records, their European booking agent delivered the confirmation that they’d booked Glastonbury last week.
“The Glastonbury Festival is definitely exciting for us. It’s been a 12 year journey so far and many people have supported us through the years and we never thought it would lead this far at all. It’s kind of surreal to go from playing our local YOT Club in Raglan to one of the most famous festivals on the planet – it’s daunting,” said Naomi.
Glastonbury will be one stop for Cornerstone during their European tour, with plans to depart on June 23 to play the Festival. They will also be touring Bristol and Brixton in the UK, then on to Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Netherlands, Hungary and France.
“We have a great time slot, we’re on after the British two tone Ska band ‘The Beat’ so we’ll have to kick it up a notch, draw on our experience and just play our music. It’s always inspiring to see the caliber of artists playing at these festivals as well.”
While the cultural differences are noticeable over in Europe, Cornerstone Roots’ unique style of roots music has received great crowd responses during their previous visits.
“Reggae is popular in Europe but tends to lean more towards the Jamaican style where as our musical interpretation branches into other styles that push the genre… We were the first NZ band to play some of these festivals and in many places English was very limited. The music is what connected us and the crowds were in to it,” said Naomi.
Busy planning and fundraising for their European tour, Cornerstone are also excited to announce that their latest single ‘Is It Real’ featuring Reiki Ruawai, is in the process of being mixed by acclaimed Canadian artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Dubmatix.
“We’re pretty excited about that tune when it arrives,” said Naomi.
This Queen’s Birthday Weekend Cornerstone roots will be holding a fundraiser gig for their European Tour with 10-piece heavyweight band Three Houses Down, DJs Jamin-I and Ras Drulox and of course Cornerstone themselves – with each ticketholder receiving a free download of the yet to be released EP, “CSR: Live Recordings @ Byron Bay.”
The YOT Club will also be donating a percentage of their bar sales as well as serving a special ‘Cornerstone Cocktail’ on the night. You can also show Cornerstone your support by visiting crowd funding website PledgMe and donating towards their tour. You can visit the page at the following link: https://www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/2114
Cornerstone Roots, Road to UK/Europe Fundraiser with support from Three Houses Down, Jamin-I and Ras Drulox, Sunday 01 June @ YOT Club, doors open 8pm, presales $25 from Raglan Roast, YOT Club or eventfinder.com
Maki Nishiyama
