Kiwi musicians catch up at Wellington's Homegrown music festival

Come Saturday, the crowds will be heaving for Homegrown on Wellington's waterfront.

But behind the stages, there'll be a lot of high fives, nods and hellos.

For more than a few Kiwi musicians, the annual waterfront festival is a chance to catch up.

"There's lots of good memories backstage," Black Seeds guitarist and vocalist Barnaby Weir said.

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And he should know – the band is a veteran of the music festival, having played in about half of Homegrown's 12 festivals.

"It's awesome to party, see our peers and play with them – it's so good to catch up," Weir said.

Homegrown arrives bang in the middle of a busy season for the band, with a recent appearance at Womad, gigs in Queenstown and an upcoming tour around Europe being planned for later this year.

"We're working on a new album this year [too] but we know that it takes a while. We don't want to put out more music just for the sake of it."

For Homegrown this year, the Black Seeds are moving from their normal site on the Dubs and Roots stage, to the City Stage. They'll be playing alongside Tiki Taane, Opshop, Dave Dobbyn and more.

This year saw 20,000 tickets to the waterfront festival sell out in record time.

"It's cool to see that there's that demand for New Zealand music," Weir said, "We feel a sense of pride for Wellington that it's a cool thing that's happening here. It's empowering for the music scene and it's cool to watch the scene grow."

The Black Seeds, more than most, have seen that growth. Last year, they celebrated 20 years as a band – a milestone Weir calls "strange, but not that strange".

"As humans, as friends and as a team we know a lot more than we did 20 years ago."

He's been used to people coming up to them over the years to tell the band "this song was at our wedding" or "this song is our kid's favourite" – only now couples are playing the songs at anniversary celebrations and the kids are growing up fast.