Open your arms and your home for a truly special run of gigs
For variable reasons — lockouts, high drink prices, the general awfulness of being in public etc — house shows are enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment; there is something inimitably and intimately comfortable about partying in the comfort of your own/landlord's home and backyard, after all.
Early next year, the legends at Adelaide backyard-gig series Porch Sessions are shaking up the concept a little bit and seeking out some homes away from home by embarking on their first-ever tour, featuring a trio of fantastic musicians across seven shows, two-and-a-half weeks and 4000 kilometres.
On-board for the inaugural interstate jaunt for the series are home-town fave Tim Moore, talented Qld troubadour Stu Larsen and delightful New Zealand fly-in Luke Thompson, all of whom are well known to each other and sure to evoke a familial and warm vibe throughout the sojourn.
Kicking off on 4 January in Adelaide, the road show heads to Robe (6 Jan), Port Fairy (8 Jan), Lorne (11 Jan), Melbourne (15 Jan), Wollongong (17 Jan) and Sydney (20 Jan) over the course of its duration, though there's still the small matter of sussing out the actual venues.
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To that end, organisers are putting out the call for potential hosts to put up their hands and their precious personal spaces to loan their backyards for a magical night with some muy bueno musicians and fans; do reach out on social media if you're keen.
None of this is a small task — The Porch Sessions crew are packing up six vans and caravans for the journey and stocking them with not just the artists and their gear but "photographers, sound engineers, event crew, porch family, porch friends and any other vibey character that fancies an adventure" — and so, understandably, they're getting by with a little help from their friends at Parlour Gigs (who've been doing a bit of innovating themselves this year) as well as the good folk at Tram Sessions Melbourne and Sofar Sounds, plus some beachside and marketplace busking along the way to help get them from one backyard to the next.
Clearly, the love poured into this venture is palpable, and worth embracing wholeheartedly if you're in one of the locales through which the series will roll in early 2017. Details — venues TBA — are at theGuide.
The Porch Sessions began in Adelaide four years ago, taking over suburban backyards and transforming them into mini-travelling-festival oases across the town. Their impending season, which will run amid the touring events, will feature eight performances.
For more information about who The Porch Sessions are and what they do, see their website.