Australian music everyman Gareth Liddiard joins Brisbane Festival with a special in-the-round performance at The Tivoli Theatre.
Though not familiar with playing in-the-round, Gareth says audiences can look forward to just him and his guitar performing songs from his vast catalogue. “I generally do a similar thing, which is a bit of everything,” Gareth says.
“I try to get in a bit of everything and it can be limited to what is possible with just a guitar by yourself, but generally three songs on every album lend themselves really well to solo stuff so you’ll probably get a bit of everything right up to the current stuff and all the way back.”
At this point, Gareth’s main concern for The Tivoli in-the-round show is not so much what to play but how he’ll escape if things go pear-shaped with the audience surrounding him. “If they boo me off I won’t be able to get away,” he laughs. “I’ll be stuck in the middle of them and I’ll have to crowd-surf out of there.”
Known for his work with The Drones, Gareth has been focussing his energies on his new musical project Tropical F… Storm (TFS). TFS released their debut album ‘A Laughing Death In Meatspace’ back in May and Gareth says the response to it has been better than they could have hoped.
“We were hoping that we wouldn’t just be ignored but it’s gone really well,” he says.
“Worldwide as well, it seems to have made an impact; people are talking about it and word-of-mouth, so it’s gone really well. It’s coming out in The States at the end of October and Europe and the UK as well, so it’s gone better than we planned.
“There was a chance that it would be a huge f…ing flop; I don’t know what anyone on the outside thinks but from the inside perspective it’s not like you always think everything you do is going to fly.”
Gareth’s performance at Brisbane Festival is one of three as part of the in-the-round series at The Tivoli, which also includes shows from Sarah Blasko and Polish Club.
With Gareth doing solo shows and concentrating on guiding the burgeoning success of TFS, he confirms The Drones are on the back-burner but that in this constantly shifting musical landscape, nothing is ever final.
“Everyone in the band is really busy, they’ve got kids and houses and businesses and normal adult stuff, and it makes it hard,” he says.
“If you get an offer to do a festival in Spain last-minute we used to be able to pack our bags, jump on a plane and go do it but now it takes a lot of forethought and planning. So we put it to rest and even if we did actually break-up, bands don’t break up anymore – that’s something they used to do in the 1970s.
“Now bands always get back together. Even bands like Pink Floyd or The Eagles who were on record for hating each other’s guts, they get the band back together.”
