The Tea Party Unveil 'Transmission' 20th-Anniversary Tour Dates

Celebrated Canadian rockers The Tea Party will return to Australia this October and November for a six-date celebratory tour in honour of their classic 1997 album, Transmission.

Kicking off at The Astor Theatre, Perth, the band will head east to stages in Adelaide, Hobart — for their first show in Tasmania since the 1990s — Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

The album is renowned for its well-loved tunes (including hits and favourites Temptation, Psychopomp, Release, Emerald and its title track) and decidedly "angry" bent, about which drummer Jeff Burrows explained: "[Frontman] Jeff Martin was in a good head space, but he was going through a lot of personal things that brought out a lot of aggression."

Elaborated Martin, "We went into the deepest, darkest depths to bring back the light. Psychopomp, for example, provides a glimpse into the afterlife. Army Ants echoes with imagery borrowed from the dystopian works of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, while the album's biggest hit, Temptation, speaks to the all-consuming power of relentless desire."

Transmission peaked locally at #3 on the ARIA charts, the band's best-ever Australian result for one of their releases. It has persisted as a bit of a cult classic, picking up double Platinum status over the past two decades and fuelling the band's current expansive tour of the US and Canada in the lead up to their sojourn Down Under.

Ticketek members will have access to an exclusive pre-sale for the Perth, Hobart and Sydney shows; Ticketmaster members will have the same for Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane. Both pre-sales get under way at 10am this Thursday, 22 June.

General public tickets will go on sale from 10am next Monday, 26 June. There will also be VIP and meet-and-greet packages available among the offerings.

For a full rundown of dates, venues and other tour details, see theGuide.