British music maverick Damon Albarn has confirmed that he is returning to Australia before the end of the year, playing a special one-off show in Sydney with an additional Melbourne show to be announced.
The Blur and Gorillaz mastermind will be making his Sydney Opera House debut with an intimate performance on Monday 15 December, 2014 to celebrate the recent release of his critically acclaimed new solo album, Everyday Robots.
Everyday Robots, an album which is “an intricate exposition of songwriting and production,” according to our Tone Deaf reviewer, features guest appearances from Opera House alumni Brian Eno and Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes, and is the first record to be released under his own name.
Joining Albarn onstage is his new live band The Heavy Seas, including guitarist Seye Adelekan, drummer Pauli The PSM, guitarist Jeff Wootton and Mike Smith on keyboards, with the addition of a string quartet and six-member choir.
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Damon Albarn was last expected to visit Australia with his bandmates in Britpop icons Blur, to headline the Big Day Out festival earlier this year, but famously pulled out of the festival weeks from kick-off, blaming “shifting goalposts” and “very challenging organisers.”
In March, Albarn further explained the reasons behind the cancellation saying that Big Day Out promoters “weren’t being straight with me about things, which they needed to be, and at that point I became disillusioned because I didn’t want what we’d done throughout the year, with Blur, to be undermined or tarnished in any way, by a show that wasn’t going to be what we wanted to do.”
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Ben Marshall, Head of Contemporary Music at Sydney Opera House said, “Damon Albarn is one of the great figures in modern music and we’re incredibly proud to present his debut solo performance in Australia. His restless inventiveness, inquisitiveness and taste across all his projects have been an inspiration to me and this will be an amazing summer evening in the Opera House Concert Hall.”
The 46-year-old Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, producer and composer’s career also encompasses the massive global success of virtual band Gorillaz; two full length opera compositions (Dr Dee and Monkey: Journey To The West); Africa Express, the collective of African and Western musicians founded by Albarn and Baaba Maal in 2007; and writer and producer credits on Bobby Womack’s acclaimed The Bravest Man In The Universe (2012). Other releases include Mali Music (2002), The Good, The Bad & The Queen (2007) with The Clash’s Paul Simonon; and Rocket Juice & The Moon (2012) with Tony Allen and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
A Melbourne show from Damon Albarn will be announced soon, but in the meantime, tickets for the Sydney Opera House concert are on sale now.
Damon Albarn Australian Show 2014
Monday 15th December, 2014 – Sydney Opera House, Sydney NSW
Tickets: From $79 sydneyoperahouse.com/music
