Musicianship students were treated to an inspiring workshop with Joel Shadbolt from one of our top NZ bands, LAB. Joel calls the Bay of Plenty home and enjoys working with and encouraging students.

The idea was for students to prepare two of Joel's songs in their Year 9 and Year 10 Music and Musicianship classes leading up to the event, and then play these songs with him in a kind of massed band. About 100 students were invited to perform along at the same time, some on acoustic and some on electric instruments.

It worked really well and from the first few bars of 'Controller' Joel's recognisable voice and amazing guitar inspired everyone to play along at their best. He was then asked to play the song again and changed drums, guitar, bass and singers etc so that others could have a turn. Joel then invited some of the students to sing a verse and others to sing backing vocals. Shavawn Walker was the first to step up and she was backed really well by Year 9 and 10 Musicianship students on six other microphones. 

Kavaana Thompson also sang the first verse solo with style and confidence. Joel played solos over the top. Joel and the students then changed to 'In The Air' and swapped the players around again. Special mention to Amy Kohu on drums and Azaleya Reid on bass. It was great to see the students wanting to have a turn playing along with the familiar guitar and voice that is on the recordings.

The workshop finished with playing 'Dancing in the Moonlight'.  Joel commented to Mr Brady that this was the “biggest band” that he had ever played with! He really enjoyed the difference of playing with the students, rather than just doing a concert.

Joel then joined the senior Contemporary Music class in Period 5, with specially invited junior songwriters Sian Nathan, Kadie Davis and Catalina Morosini to workshop some strong song compositions from the year group. After giving some great ideas to our budding composers, he was left humming these promising compositions. 

Joel also worked with one of our junior Rock Band 'Allegro' helping to prepare them for the Rockquest and jammed along with the senior class to finish. We are very grateful that he took the time and the energy to do this with our school.

As Sky Herewini in Year 9 said, 

“It was really enjoyable, and everyone was just having so much fun rocking out with such a great kiwi artist! He is a local legend!"