Undies galore at Tom Jones gig

CRAIG SIMCOX/Dominion Post

NIGHT OF FUN: Tom Jones, the main drawcard of the Mission Estate concert, was rapt with the winery venue while fans like Monica Williams and Pat Davis, inset, brought more than a bottle of savvy.

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There was no shortage of undies as legendary crooner Tom Jones performed at the Mission concert, writes Kathy Webb.

The girls with knickers on their heads and over their jeans would have seemed unusual anywhere else.

But at a Tom Jones concert - where that sort of thing goes - they hardly raised an eyebrow.

And only the crowd partying up the front would have seen whether any of the knickers actually made it on to the Mission Estate stage - in Tom Jones tradition.

There was no doubting the 25,000-strong crowd at Hawke's Bay's biggest annual party was out for fun on Saturday night despite a limit on how much they could drink.

There were men in black curly wigs a la Tom Jones, wearing Welsh flags, loud shirts and chest medallions; there were "sex bomb" T-shirts and flashing devil-horns.

The baby boomers turned out in force, some in designer finery and carrying Fortnum and Mason hampers. Others opted for a more casual look of jandals and tight T-shirts pulled over bulging bellies into which they shovelled hot chips.

Some sat at picnic tables on the flats, but most perched on blankets on the slopes, thankful for a mild breeze and overcast skies.

The glo-stick-decorated crowd was into it from the start. First up was When the Cat's Away, then rocker Jimmy Barnes, followed by Jones, who responded with chat to his enthusiastic reception.

It was the 16th concert at New Zealand's oldest winery, and organisers' strategy of limiting how much alcohol each concert-goer could take through the gates, paid off for police and St John Ambulance, who in past years have had to deal with drunken fights, vomiting and drunk people falling down the hill.

Hawke's Bay district operations manager Stephen Smith said 40 St John staff attended to 110 patients in the seven hours after the gates opened at 3pm. Of those, 12 were taken to hospital.

The main injuries were ankles and arms broken or sprained by people slipping on wet grass on the hill after early-afternoon rain. Police made no arrests within the grounds, and only a few outside the gates.

Mission Estate chief executive Peter Holley was pleased with the well-behaved crowd. Jones, who stayed at the exclusive Cape Kidnappers Lodge, was "rapt" with the Mission as a venue, he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News