Paul Kelly - Making Gravy

One of Australian music’s biggest success stories in recent years belongs to Courtney Barnett. Armed with a distinctive voice, wickedly insightful lyricism, and simple yet ferocious guitar work, it’s little wonder reviews packed with superlatives follow her like a shadow. Sharing with Paul Kelly an innate ability to conjure a uniquely Australian feel, she’s the perfect addition to the top of the Making Gravy bill, with tracks like ‘Avant Gardener’, ‘Elevator Operator’, and ‘Nameless Faceless’. The first female artist to win the ARIA for Best Rock Album, she’s also taken home triple j’s Album of the Year, the Australian Music Prize, and a Grammy nomination - the latter a mark of her domination of stages around the world, not just at home. Two EPs and her debut record Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit preceded a collaborative album with US legend Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Lice, before 2018’s powerful, scathing, and fierce sophomore album Tell Me How You Really Feel blew the world away. Her thundering live show has seen Barnett headline festivals around the world, with her global impact an unprecedented achievement in Australian music.

In a whole different way, the legendary Kate Miller-Heidke took Australia to the world with her show-stopping top 10 performance of ‘Zero Gravity’ at the Eurovision Song Contest. The award-winning singer-songwriter has soared across indie-pop, folk, and opera - the only artist in history to perform at the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Eurovision Song Contest, and Coachella. With four studio albums to her name, the classically-trained, multi-platinum artist has also written for and performed in operas and stage productions around the world, and is currently working on her fifth studio album. Her most recent release, ‘Ernie’, was originally written for The Hush Foundation, which creates calming music for children’s hospitals and other stressful environments.

New Zealand’s most alluring voice, Marlon Williams, will also join Paul Kelly around the country on the Making Gravy tour. His unforgettable tone has captivated audiences around the world, plucking at our collective heartstrings with tracks like ‘What’s Chasing You’, ‘Beautiful Dress’, and ‘Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore (feat. Aldous Harding)’. The crooner has sung duets with Florence Welch, Lorde, and Julia Jacklin, sold out global tours in support of his second album Make Way For Love, and won the New Zealand Music Awards for Album of the Year (Make Way For Love) and Best Solo Artist. To top it all off, he made his Hollywood debut by quite literally stealing the show from Bradley Cooper in A Star Is Born. 

(SYD ONLY)

In Sydney, 24-year-old Gamilaraay woman Thelma Plum will open proceedings with hits from her recently released debut album Better In Blak. The triple j Feature Album is a story about culture, heritage, love, and pain, deftly capturing the essence of what it’s like to be a young Aboriginal woman in Australia. Written and recorded across New York, London, and Sydney with frequent collaborator Alex Burnett (Antony & Cleopatra, Sparkadia), it features singles ‘Clumsy Love’, ‘Not Angry Anymore’, and title track ‘Better In Blak’. Dave Le’aupepe of Gang of Youths pops up on ‘Love And War’, and the one and only Sir Paul McCartney makes a contribution on guitar to ‘Made For You’, a love song Thelma fittingly wrote with Paul Kelly himself.