Newtown Rocksteady

Vintage Jamaican dance party

Newtown Rocksteady make a welcome return to Nelson for a night of music and dancing at The Boathouse.

Newtown rocksteady was born at the local community center in 2007 when a loose collective of local musos would get together every Friday night as the sun went down in the heady days of summer, to play music for friends, families, and kids to dance to. Their material - mostly drawn from forty years back in the faraway land of Jamaica where another long, hot summer (1967) had inspired a new sound that came from ska and evolved into reggae, called ‘rocksteady’ - was chosen specifically for it’s easy danceability! Over time the loose collective has settled into a core membership of 12-15 members, written a stack of original material, released a handful of albums, amassed over a million streams on spotify and most importantly, packed out dancefloors with happy, smiling faces all over the country many times over.

"Possibly one of the greatest dance bands to have played the Mussel Inn in the past eighteen years. These guys are rock steady in every sense of those two words. - Andrew, Mussel Inn - Onekaka"