Augie March are ready to revisit a defining moment in Australian indie rock history, announcing they’ll tour their landmark 2006 album Moo, You Bloody Choir in full next April.
For the first time ever, the band will perform the iconic record front-to-back, with a handful of extra favourites thrown in for good measure. The run kicks off at Freo.Social on April 3rd, hits Adelaide and Melbourne, and wraps at Brisbane’s The Triffid on April 17th.
“We’re a modest outfit, almost always have been, questions of age of respective members are tactfully off limits,” the band say of the album turning 20. “That aside, we’re fighting fit and pretty happy that we’re probably a better equipped bunch to tackle this sprawling, ambitious, poetic, melodic record than we were first time around. People loved Moo and it’ll be a series of rooms full of reciprocal love, nothing is surer.”
“One Crowded Hour” remains the obvious touchpoint — a poetic, aching hit that topped triple j’s Hottest 100 and pushed Augie March from cult darlings to airwave staples. But Moo, You Bloody Choir is no one-song album. Across 14 tracks, they drift through indie folk, pop and drama with a literary bent no one else has ever really matched, from the lush storytelling of “Victoria’s Secret” to the swagger of “The Cold Acre”.
The record’s creation wasn’t without chaos. “A little known anecdote while recording some of the album in the tenderloin district of Chicago…there was a total of three dead bodies encountered by band members over the week, including one as a result of an armed robbery at the diner across the road,” the band recall. “Fun? Not really, but when you get to be the not dead bodies, there is a certain strange euphoria.”
Even before this era, the Shepparton-spawned group had built serious cred — 2000’s Sunset Studies earned them an ARIA Award and a loyal following. But as keyboardist Kiernan Box puts it, making Moo almost broke them.
“Experiments with new song called ‘One Crowded Hour’ showed some promise. From there the project seemed cursed by a range of professional and personal crises: record labels merged, producers and engineers fought, band members were seriously wounded in assaults… It sometimes seemed as though the new album would never materialise,” he says. “Eventually it did emerge, the single ‘One Crowded Hour’ struck like a lightning bolt and a small, critically popular band suddenly found themselves all over the airwaves as mainstream sensations.”
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The album would go on to score platinum status, win the Australian Music Prize and remain one of the most singular Australian releases of the 2000s, even making it to No. 33 on this year’s Hottest 100 Australian Songs countdown.
Now, two decades on, Augie March are leaning into the history. But they’re not interested in turning these shows into a legacy event.
“These anniversary things can either be rote and procession like, or a second chance to investigate the enduring mystery that genuine, complete, composed bodies of work are made of,” they say. “We are excited to opt for the latter version… The songs will be treated with respect and disdain simultaneously, the shows will be powerful and intimate by turns, we will speak with the audience and they will speak with us, like all the best Augie shows.”
There’s no suggestion this will be the band’s last deep dive, either.
“We’ve recorded and released several acclaimed albums since Moo and each of us has established our own careers independent of the band, as well as the odd family,” they add. “But like Elvis we have never left the bathroom.” Glenn Richards is already working on a new project “set to have UK and European release in ’26”.
“There’s always more in the pen and the strings when it’s Augie, we don’t rest on laurels or weeds,” they add. “This upcoming tour is just a lovely stepping stone to the next bit, albeit a rather large and shiny one!”
Augie March — Moo, You Bloody Choir 20th Anniversary Tour
Tickets on sale Tuesday, December 2nd, 9am local time
Pre-sale from Monday, December 1st, 9am local time
More info: teamwrk touring
Friday, April 3rd
Freo.Social, Perth WA
Saturday, April 4th
The Gov, Adelaide SA
Friday, April 10th
The Croxton, Melbourne VIC
Friday, April 17th
The Triffid, Brisbane QLD
