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Byron blues busking competition
The Blues Over Byron Busking Competition has reached it’s 5th year and is going stronger than ever! With a stage gig up for grabs at the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival in iconic Byron Bay this competition certainly holds a great opportunity for aspiring artists who want to launch themselves at the biggest Blues Festival in the Southern Hemisphere!
- The heats for the competition start on Mon 2nd April and go through to Wed 4th in venues around Byron (Beach Hotel, Great Northern & the Rails)
- The final will be held at the Beach Hotel on Good Friday (6th April).
- A panel of judges made up of industry peers as well as management companies & producers will select 1 lucky winner to perform on the APRA stage on the Monday of the Blues Fest.
- As at least 4 other performers will be selected to busk for a day inside the event over the Easter weekend.
- There are 2 categories to enter in the comp: Best Original Artist or Best Street Performer.
- Entry to the competition can be made on line at or download form and post in. Entries should be received by Friday 30th March 2007
to view press release - click here
Entry form for Street Preformers only - Click here
to view Terms & Conditions - click here
Bundaberg Rum Blues Over Byron Busking Festival 2007
WINNERS OF THE BUSKING COMPETITION ANNOUNCE:
Marshall
Bundaberg Rum Blues Over Byron Busking Festival 2007
WINNERS OF THE BUSKING COMPETITION ANNOUNCE:
Marshall
What an amazing competition it was this year and a fantastic lead up to the Blues Fest with the Byron CBD filled with Blues Music! Raw undiscovered talent filled our streets and venues with an atmosphere worthy of the upcoming Blues & Roots Music Festival, giving locals and visitors free entertainment and an anticipation of the Festival to come.
The comp was held from Mon 2nd April - Wed 4th April & there were 2 categories to enter: Best Original Musician & Best Street Performer
BEST ORIGINAL MUSICIAN
This side of the comp was held in the 3 main entertainment venues in town; the Backroom, the Beach Hotel & the Rails. Judges Murray Burns (producer), Robert Raymond (manager), Anita Colanbrander (manager) and Adahmo (musician) where again on pub crawl around town making sure they caught all of the 35 talented entrants to decide on a final 5 to go through to the final. There were a lot of stand out entrants making their decision extremely hard as unfortunately they couldn't all make it through - the one who didn't included:
The final had been scheduled to the Jambalaya Stage at the Blues Fest on the Thursday afternoon, but due to technical difficulties was shifted to the Beach Hotel with just 2hrs notice thanks to the support of the Beach Hotel, the Blues Fest and Bay FM, and thanks to the patience of the finalists! There was a great crowd up there on the Thurs afternoon supporting the comp and enjoying the cream of the crop who were made up of: G-roove, Blue Skillet Rovers,
Eventual placing went to - 1st
***KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR MARSHALL & THE FRO AND MAKE SURE YOU GET ALONG AND SUPPORT THEM AT THEIR GIGS (web links above)
BEST STREET PERFORMER
As usual there was also a lot of talent out on the streets, with Chief B Mia keeping it all under control with her assistant Ben there were also tough decisions to be made on who would be chosen to busk out at the Blues Festival. Honorable mention needs to go out to
Winners of the Street Performer Category were: Blue Skillet Rovers, Cloud Nine, Cockatoo
PICS AND LINKS COMING SOON............
2006 Busking Competition
The Blues Over Byron Busking Festival is back again warming up for this Easter & the Blues Festival, and it's promising to be bigger & better than ever! Once again the winner will be given a spot on stage at the prestigious Blues Festival on the Monday as well as runners up being allowed to busk around the Blues Fest over the weekend. To lift the profile of the competition and variety of buskers gracing the town for the weekend, the organizers have expanded the competition to include Street Performers, with 1 being given permission to busk inside the Festival for the weekend (Sat, Sun & Mon) and 2 others given a 1/2 day each at the main entrance.
The heats for this competition will be held from Mon 10th - Wed 12th April from 11:30am-6pm at the Beach Hotel, Great Northern Hotel & the Rails, with the final on Friday 14th April at the Beach Hotel from noon.
This is truly growing into another community run, cultural festival that Byron Bay can be proud of, and is only able to happen thanks to the support of the Byron Business Group, the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival, the Byron Bay Lions Club, the Beach Hotel, the Great Northern Hotel, the Railway Friendly Bar and Cocomangas Nightclub & Tapas Bar.
If last years competition is anything to go by the Blues Over Byron Festival is going to be well worth checking out with all the talent that comes into the cbd for the week. The businesses will also be getting into the spirit as the enter a Blues window/shop dressing competition as they paint the town blue!
2005 Report
The Byron Blues Busking Festival 2005 (blues busking competition) certainly upped the ante this year and brought plenty of talented muso’s (esp locals) down from the hills & out of the woodwork. With the competition being held between the 4 main entertainment venues in Byron; the Beach Hotel, Cocomangas, the Great Northern Hotel & the Railway Friendly Bar the judges had to be prepared to hot foot around town, following the diverse & eclectic range of performers all vying for the spot on stage at the 16th annual East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival!
Day 1 of competition
As this was a busking competition the rules of entry were very open, stating only that you had to be prepared to turn up at the gig self sufficient, as if you were busking. This being so the judges found themselves faced with a wide range of performance styles to choose from and took into consideration that not all performers would have the same equipment & advantage as others and not hold that against them. Once the competition got started though the standard was set as the first contestant Hans Hopgood kicked things off at the rails with his acoustic set. Later that day at the Rails, Gold Coast locals may have recognised young busker, 12yr old Billy Jack on the electric piano who was well supported by his family & friends who came down for the festival!
Cocomangas showed us some great performances with Chris Evans and his blues slide with vocals & animated puppet show giving the kids some great entertainment!
The busking went down a treat at the Beachy with an area made available under the pine trees near the beach, and when the weather turned bad an area near the sound booth was set up. And the Great Northern really brought it home with standout performances by solo guitar/vocalists Mick Diggle, Danni Bear and Alexi Keller! The judges are excited by what’s ahead of them! 2 and Tim Jones, another Gold Coast entrant gets the vibes up at Cocomangas with some original songs and warms the judges up for the big day ahead! Coco’s also hosted Juan Salvador with some impressive Santana covers, local busker Paul van den Hoorn with his acoustic & melodic tunes and lunch for the judges which I must say was delicious!
Day 2
The Beachy certainly didn’t disappoint in the talent stakes, showcasing Cockatoo Paul (infamous around town with his didge & Mr Scribble his faithful sidekick sitting on his shoulder), young Daniel Tsung on the electric piano who came 2nd last yr really got the joint jumpin, and John Moody & his band who played some awesome Jimmy Hendrix covers as well as others and was even seen playing the guitar with his teeth!
Other standouts on the day were Waz Porter & Jackie Sterling who played at the Northern and Rails contestant local band Chayser (formerly Ionic) who also won the peoples choice award! The judges are starting to sweat about how hard it’s gonna be to choose!
Day 3 - Wednesday, the final day of the heats & a full day ahead…
with nothing but blues skies to contend with, Jeff Wilson started the day beautifully outside at the Beachy. With not a moment to spare today the panel had their work set out for them to make sure everyone had a fair hearing, even with hold ups in traffic, performers scrambling to make it in time and a bit of juggle fragments of chaos from the organizer and everyone got their 15mins of fame. Highlights from day 3 came from the multitalented Nathan Kaye who played at the Northern, young local girl Lilly Jo Smith with her unique and colourful routines, 17yr old Daniel Morgan (close your eyes & you’d believe he’s 30+), Nikki Martins band Thermal (who came together at Mullum Steiner School), vocalist Caroline Summers with Craig Saunders on guitar who could take your breath away & bring a tear to your eye with her gorgeous sound and local busking band Fuse who finished things off on the balcony of Cocomangas! And now the hard part – who’s in the finals..?
After a good healthy debate the judges rounded the selection down to the 9 buskers who would come in on Friday for the final at Cocomangas; Daniel Morgan, Danni Bear, Jacqui Sterling, Caroline Summers, Cockatoo Paul, Nathan Kaye, Chayser (formerly Ionic), Waz Porter and Fuse. The day went well with great performances by all finalists, the venue filled with supporters and only a minor sound problem fixed by Craig Saunders (guitar player for Caroline and sound technician extraordinaire).
The Blues Festival, thanks to Grant Hilton’s support, had generously given the Byron Blues Busking Festival 9 spots total, 1 for each of the finalists; 1 x Monday on the APRA stage, 2 x 3 days busking inside the festival grounds and 6 x busking at the front gate for 1 day. This helped put the judging panel at ease as the talent was so hard to choose between!
The eventual winner of the stage gig was Casey Dean’s band Chayser (Ionic) who got Peter Noble on side and ended up playing twice that day with great crowd support, especially the 2nd time round when those who weren’t quite so die hard had a chance to wake up & get there to check them out! Waz Porter & Nathan Kaye won the 3day busking passes and I believe Nathan got a bonus by beatboxing with Lisa Hunt who was headlining the Jambalaya stage on the Monday!
Thanks to Lawrence Eastland, Sound Foundation put up a great prize for the Best Origional Artist, giving them an outlet to have their pre recorded music available over the internet through Sound Foundations website ... keep an eye out for it as it will be launching soon.
Special mentions need to be made thanking the Blues Festival, Sound Foundation, the Byron Council, the Byron Lions Club, the Byron Chamber of Commerce and our tireless judges for their great support!
All around it was a fantastic, exhausting, inspiring, emotional and exciting 4days that will grow into something even more beautiful in years to come – I can’t wait for the next one!!!
Sandy McKee
Organiser
Chayser Become “King of the Buskers” 8th April 05
Newly formed Byron Bay band Chayser, are now preparing for a single release along with a film clip, after earning the right to perform on stage at the 2005 East-Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival.
The “King of the Buskers Competition” was held a week prior to the Festival in a number of different venues around Byron including The Rails, The Northern, The Beach hotel and Coccomangas.
Chayser wowed audiences and judges alike, taking out the number one spot as well as the “Crowd Choice Award” out of over 40 acts in the competition. This entitled them to a paid performance at the Blues Festival and huge exposure to audiences and music industry personalities.
After performing as the opening act on Monday, the final day of the festival, Chayser’s high energy show was so impressive, they were asked to come back and perform later that afternoon by heads of the festival. Chayser’s management are now in negotiations with Blues Festival coordinators to add their name on the bill for next year.
Chayser’s debut single “Social Necktie” is currently being mastered along with a film clip and is due out mid May on Chayser’s own independent record label.
“We have all been trying so hard for so long; a break like this is exactly what we were putting our energy toward. It is an amazing opportunity and we will be sure to make the most of it.” - Casey Dean, lead vocalist of Chayser
Chayser’s next live performance will be headlining “The Underdog” independent music and film festival at the Bangalow A & I hall 29th April.
Free streaming MP3s of Chayser’s music are now available from the TUNES page at www.caseydean.com
Chayser is;
Casey Dean - Lead vocals, guitar, mandolin, percussion
Jedi Wright - Vocals, lead guitar, mandolin, percussion
Shane Evans - Vocals, drums, clarinet, percussion
Aryn Appleberry - Vocals, bass, double bass, sitar, percussion
Photos of 2005 event
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