The Whitlams: London Calling.

The Whitlams play Sunset Cinema in the City Gardens on Saturday and Twin Towns Services Club on Sunday.

The Whitlams frontman Tim Freedman is soaking up the last rays of Toronto sunlight.

“I’m coming the long way home an doing some solo shows. We’re getting the album released overseas for the first time, so I’m doing some solo launches. I did a solo gig in Dublin, Toronto last night, and New York tomorrow before I fly home. I just play the piano and chat. It’s a fireside chat kind of trip.”

“I don’t do it that often, just when I have to. It can be hard work to take the whole band on the road, seven people and all the gear, not to mention costing an arm and a leg. This is nice and okay to be simple.”

The whole band did originally make the trip overseas, however, playing a sold out show in London at the Shepherds Bush Empire.

“The London gig has stormed into my top five all time gigs that I’ve played,” he enthuses. “It’s a 2000 seater, and over half the people there I’d say were Aussies. They’re the ones who make it possible for us to tour overseas. We can pack out certain venues to pay the bills. I think it was the first time the Australians there had been together with so many other Australians since the bombing in Bali. They were all travellers as well, so it was pretty spirited and heart-warming in places.”

Was it an emotional event to be playing in front of a mostly Australian audience like that, who would have been thinking about that experience?

“It was. I don’t normally mention current events at a gig, but I certainly chatted about the bombings and the horrible pain for the people and their relatives. I think it was important to do it there, because I was playing to a lot of travellers who could easily have stopped there on the way home, or on their way to London. So when they heard a song they new, they sang it loud and lifted the roof off. It was quite spine tingling in parts.”

Immediately upon their arrival back, The Whitlams are on the road once more to support their outstanding Torch The Moon long player. While recently in Brisbane for M-One, this will be the first time the band have had a chance to play their full set to home crowds for several months.

“We missed Brisbane on our last tour. M-One was a really brief show. We didn’t get to do our usually two-hour schmozzle. We felt like we were off stage by the time we’d warmed up. It was more like playing an instore. I really like to play for a couple of hours, get loose and get into it all. It’s very difficult in a short time.”

Is it tough to cut your set back considering the amount of material you have, and knowing what people are going to want to hear?

“You just play what people what to hear. It was a very commercial event, so you just pick the commercial songs. Don’t get too ambitious. We don’t do festivals often. We tend to just paddle our own canoe and do our own tours. I still view us as an alternative act, but a lot of people don’t. We’re not quite alternative enough to do something like Big Day Out, we’re not really rock enough for something like M-One. This year we got nominated as a pop act in the ARIAs. We sort of tend to fall between the cracks. So we just sail off on our own on the good ship Whitlams. I like to play festivals, but we’re not really a festival type band.”

Were you here for the ARIAs?

“Yeah, we let for London the day after. I had to leave earlier than I usually do because we had an early morning flight, so I didn’t see the fallout. I was sitting next to Bob Geldof for four hours, and it was really interesting talking to him. I caught a bit of his show in Sydney actually. A friend of mine has a spare ticket, so I dropped in and caught the start of the show. It was a good bawdy celtic romp.”

But back to the ARIAs coverage…

“Actually, one think you didn’t get to see on television was that they let us drink, but there was mouthwash in the wine bottles. So we were looking at this one bottle of wine for four hours, but you couldn’t drink it. So that was why there was such widespread sobriety on the night.”