Mark writes about touring with the Red Hot Summer Tour.

Author:  Mark Seymour.

Date: 23 February 2023.

Original URL: N/A.

Article Text

Greetings Stuart Fenech,

Red Hot Summer goes to where people live. Which is pretty much how it should be, really. We’re well underway now.. Fly out early on Saturday morning, land, then drive.

Some drives are longer than others. The gig can be anywhere. A footy oval, golf course, winery, racing track. The promoter.. Duane Macdonald literally drops a pin into google maps then goes and has a look..

With six acts on the bill, people turn up early. There’s something to be said for playing in broad daylight. No one can hide. People’s faces are in plain view. Smiling preferably.

The weather has been tricky of course. Needless to say things go better if it doesn’t rain.. which it hasn’t.. except for two weeks ago in Port Macquarie when the stage got blown over.. which meant a re-schedule to April 8.

Fortunately no one was hurt.

“One thing I’ve learned from theatre gigs is that you can really ‘speak’ to the audience.”

It’s a short set though. Forty-five minutes in fact. The trick is to strike a balance. To deliver songs people are likely to know, then slip the highlights in from the latest album.. ‘Joanna’, ‘Slow Dawn,’ and ‘The Dogs of Williamstown’..

There are many more of course, and in the longer theatre gigs which are coming up in October, we’ll be playing upwards of two and half hours. The beauty of a long set is that you can explore the continuity of the writing from one album to the next. Over decades.

One thing I’ve learned from theatre gigs is that you can really ‘speak’ to the audience. Explain where the songs came from. The back story. The original reason why the songs erupted. It always surprises me what springs to mind. Often memories long buried, or forgotten, emerge in the telling.

The new songs are very different. They come from all over the world. I wrote lines down in trains, buses and hotels, in the U.S. Ireland and South Africa.

As I write this, new words are coming.

There are always more stories to tell..

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SLOW DAWN TOUR 2023 DATES

Oct 7 – The Gov – Hindmarsh, Adelaide
Oct 14 – The Tivoli – Fortitude Valley Brisbane
Oct 21 – The Factory Theatre – Marrickville Sydney
Oct 28 – Memo Music Hall – St Kilda, Melbourne

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