Who’s the Mission Concert act? Rumours swirl over Napier winery’s big billing

Mission Concert faithful could be waiting a while yet for any news on a 2024 or even 2025 act after the scotching of one of the rumours starting in the annual
guessing game of who next will strut the Taradale vineyard’s stage.

According to one street source, but not offering a name, a contract had been signed, and the event wouldn’t be on a Saturday, but Garry Craft, of long-time Mission Concert promoters Sports and Entertainment Ltd (SEL), told Hawke’s Bay Today from his home in Brisbane: “Wrong on both counts.”

He said no act has yet been signed, but there is an “amazing act” pencilled in for 2026, yet the hunt for a name any earlier remains a case of investigating who is touring Downunder and following up the frequent-flyers of those most wanted by the concert-of-choice Mission flock.

With a long list of icons from the first Mission Estate Concert, with opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in 1993, to Robbie Williams’ two concerts last November, aficionados might think there’s a thinning of the queue, but Craft says there are still names being mentioned such as 74-year-old Billy Joel, Sir Paul McCartney, 81, Dolly Parton, 78, Stevie Wonder, 73, and comparatively-youthful Shania Twain, 58.

Craft doubts whether New Zealand will see another concert for McCartney, who was in Hawke’s Bay before an Auckland concert in late 2017, and Dolly Parton has announced an end to touring, while saying she’d love to come back to New Zealand.

The now 79-year-old Sir Rod Stewart, with three Mission visits to his name, is no longer on the radar having vowed his last was his final in New Zealand.

As for Stevie Wonder, Craft said on Tuesday: “I was thinking about him yesterday, but I don’t think he’s touring anymore.”

Wonder has reportedly been in talks to return to headline the UK’s huge Glastonbury festival this year.

Bruce Springsteen, another who has been on the Missiongoers’ wish list, currently has concerts listed for Europe and North America but shows no sign of heading south for the summer.

Simply Red, who were at Church Road Vineyards in 2010 on the group’s “final farewell tour”, and were back up the road at the Mission in 2016, have an upcoming 40th anniversary tour with dates announced up to late next year, but not yet including any in the Southern Hemisphere.

SEL is touring grunge band Pearl Jam in Australia and New Zealand late this year, with two November concerts at Auckland’s Mt Smart near booked-out, but the band doesn’t fit the Mission profile, nor do “hard-rock” acts, Craft said.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.