The Waitangi area in New Zealand was filled with music on Easter Sunday as the Copthorne Hotel and Resort Bay of Islands played host to the inaugural Bay of Islands Music Festival. Hosted on the stunning waterfront lawns of the hotel, the festival featured several local and international roots, soul, funk and blues acts, such as Katchafire, Bobby Alu, Teeks, and headlined by the iconic Jimmy Cliff.

The festival was a resounding success, drawing an estimated crowd of nearly 2,500 music lovers, with organisers fielding requests for next year’s event. But the festival faced a close shave – the headline act almost didn’t make it.

Jamaican reggae legend Jimmy Cliff performed at the Byron Bay Bluesfest in Australia on Friday and was scheduled to fly across to New Zealand Saturday morning, however his flight out of the Gold Coast was heavily delayed. The band landed in Auckland at 4.40pm, 10 minutes after the last flight to the Northland airport departed. Local carrier Air New Zealand tried valiantly to organise a special flight but couldn't get enough crew at such short notice, therefore the band jumped in a bus and drove up north.

The other bands at the festival extended their sets and were on standby in case they had to go back on stage for a multi-band jam, and by the time Jimmy Cliff was scheduled to be on stage he was still on the road. Fortunately, despite road closures and potential holiday traffic, Jimmy and his band made it to the hotel by 9.30pm, hitting the stage without even stopping by their hotel rooms. Despite a 2-and-a-half-hour delay at the airport, 4-hour flight and 4-hour drive, Jimmy and his band delivered a stellar performance. With the strict finish time of 10.45pm due to noise control ordinances the band scrapped several songs in their set to make sure they got to play hits such as ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, ‘Reggae Nights’, ‘The Harder They Come’, ‘Many Rivers To Cross’ and ‘Wild World’.

The reggae star started off his 70th birthday on the Monday at the Copthorne Hotel and Resort Bay of Islands before flying back over to Australia to play another show at the Byron Bay Bluesfest.

He was pleased to be in New Zealand for his birthday, saying, “I'm going to be in a country that has got a lot of natural beauty and nature. I'm from a country that has natural beauty and nature so I'm looking forward to getting more of that over there.”

Copthorne Hotel and Resort Bay of Islands sits within the Waitangi National Trust Reserve, where the historic Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and Māori Chiefs in 1840.