Students by day, rock band by night, teen band Captivated certainly did their name justice.
Captivated, the four man rock band made up of year 11 Wairarapa College students held opening honours at this year’s Summer Hummer in Masterton’s Queen Elizabeth Park.
The band consists of drummer Chester Thawley, lead singer and rhythm guitarist Rebekah Brown, bass guitarist Nikhil Satya and lead guitarist Daniel Hansen.
The group warmed up the day, playing a mix of 90’s rock classics and their own originals.
Already this year, Captivated have won the Regional SmokeFree Rock Quest, and at Talent Wairarapa they landed first place and people’s choice awards.
Bass guitarist Nikhil said the group were taken aback to be asked to open the event.
“A bit scared you know, knowing how big this event’s been in the past,” he said.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of pressure when you have to be the first people to go out in front of a big crowd,” drummer Chest said.
“You’re like the ice breakers, you have to get the crowd loosened up for the other acts.”
Other acts on the day included Wairarapa local talents: Dragonfly, Maceo, Sinner Man Saint, Deluxe Edition, Tin Palace and Auckland rapper, Kings.
The teenage band mates have been together since year nine, and meet up weekly for two-hour-long jam sessions.
“We like to do covers of pop songs and make them into rocky songs and add in a bit of grunge and fun to it.
“We just love playing gigs as much as we can, and also writing originals is a big focus of ours.”
Lead vocalist Rebekah said that when writing originals, it starts with one person’s idea.
“But then from the idea we all work on it together and we basically work on our own parts as a band,” she said.
Although practice is important, there’s no real story behind the band name, Captivated.
“We might have just used a band name generator online, I’m pretty sure that’s how it came about,” Chester laughed.
“Either that or someone just went into a dictionary and found a random page and then just like, read the first word they saw… it was pretty funny.”
Thanks to Chester’s involvement in Masterton Youth Council’s community work, the band were called in to play at Summer Hummer in support of the planned youth hub by Masterton’s skatepark.
“And originally it was going to be done by today, but it got delayed,” Chester said.
“We had planned to have a big opening with local bands and a few other acts to celebrate the opening of the skate park, like a skate competition etc.”
“And then that idea got passed on to some other people who pretty much turned it into Summer Hummer.”
Summer Hummer organiser, Stella Lennox, said Summer Hummer was about celebrating Queen Elizabeth Park and the skatepark.
“And just to bring some more activities back to our youth, because it’s been lacking for a long time,” Lennox said.
“We’re going to put [Summer Hummer] on the calendar.
“We’re aiming for the first Saturday of December every year.
“I’ve given up five years, it might go on longer, but I’m wanting to keep it around for the next five years.”
And while Masterton may be as big as it gets right now, Captivated have big plans for the future, citing Hollywood Bowl and Glastonbury as dream venues to perform in one day.
The band’s single, ‘Control’ will be available on Spotify from December 9.
