Australian singer-songwriter Graeme Connors will return to Tamworth this week, bringing his What Next? show to the Capitol Theatre on Wednesday, 11 March from 7pm.
The performance will include special guests, with Tamworth’s own Aleyce Simmonds joining Connors on stage, while singer-songwriter Linc Phelps will also appear during the show. Local guitarist Anthony Walmsley will be part of the touring band for several dates, including the Tamworth performance.
Each show on the tour has been, and will continue to be, slightly different as his band members and guests change throughout the run.
For Graeme, performing in Tamworth outside the rush of the Tamworth Country Music Festival offers a chance to experience the town at a slower pace.
“The festival means that you’re either doing something or you’re recuperating from a show or getting ready for a show,” he said.
“And once the festival happens, of course it’s the big evening of the Golden Guitars and everything, and then you’re sort of in a car and off again or on the plane and gone.”
“It never feels like you’re really breathing in Tamworth air.”
Returning outside that hectic January period is something the Mackay-based artist said he looked forward to.
“It will be a nice occasion to be there for a day or two and enjoy the town in its lazy state,” he said.
The concert will include new material from his album What Next? alongside the songs that audiences have been listening to for decades.
“There are so many, dare I say, sort of classics in people’s minds that you’re torn between which one do I do,” Graeme said.
“There’s only two hours, you know, so we’ve got a great balance at the moment in terms of new versus old, songs you know by heart versus songs that might take you by surprise.”
Many of those well-known songs are also being presented in a slightly different way on this tour with new arrangements.
The multi-award-winning singer-songwriter has built his long career and his connection with audiences around the songs themselves.
“I’m working to an audience that love songwriting,” he said.
“It’s not just a sort of lift or elevator music. It’s something they put on at home and experience or in the car.”
That connection is also why songs written years ago continue to resonate with listeners today.
“I’m quite astounded at how songs that I wrote in a time and place still feel very contemporary today with things that are happening,” Graeme said.
“A song like The Great Australian Dream … I’m astonished at the number of young people who request the song.”
The Tamworth show will also include a couple of special collaborations during the performance.
Singer-songwriter Linc Phelps, who recently released a new version of “Prodigal Son” with Graeme, will join him for several songs, while Aleyce Simmonds will perform the duet “Bondwood Boat”.
“It’s a collaboration that I feel very close to,” Graeme said.
“You never know what’s going to happen with a song, especially when you put two people in a room.”
For Tamworth audiences, the show offers a chance to hear new songs alongside the catalogue that has kept Graeme touring and writing for decades.
The tour continues through NSW to the ACT and Graeme promises more touring throughout the year, as well as shows at festivals including the Gympie Music Muster in August.
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