It seems the award-winning, zeitgeist-capturing Leeds quartet just can’t get enough of Australia.
Following their recent visit to Australia as part of the 2013 Laneway Festival, with a single headline sideshow at Sydney’s Metro Theatre (and squeezing in a ‘secret’ performance at the Mushroom 2013 rebrand launch party) in February, Alt-J (∆) are headed back to Australia for a third visit in less than a year.
The UK four-piece are headed to Australia for a three-date headline tour in July, playing their largest venues in the country yet, including their debut show in Perth at the Challenge Stadium, Melbourne’s Festival Hall, and Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion.
It’s a huge leap in venue capacity for the band since their first-ever Australian shows last October at Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory and Melbourne’s 300 capacity Ding Dong Lounge; something our Tone Deaf reviewer predicted when they wrote, “they’ll never again play to Australians in such an intimate space. A fact that any one of the sweaty revellers that were there, grinning with the luck of the Irish and glowing in the wake of a great performance, will be more than happy to tell you.”
All of their previous shows have sold out in minutes, so filling stadium-sized venues shouldn’t be a problem for Alt-J, especially given they stormed three spots in Triple J’s Hottest 100 for 2012. Their highest position peaking at #3 with ‘Breezeblocks’, followed by ‘Tesselate’ at #64 and ‘Something Good’ at #81; all three singles taken from the band’s Mercury Prize-winning debut, An Awesome Wave.
A July visit from the band almost automatically puts them in contention for Splendour In The Grass, the festival for Australia’s winter season, typically held around July each year. Alt-J (∆) join an impressive list of bands and acts rumoured for the festival, especially since the Japanese Fuji Rock festival revealed its own confirmed acts. Given Fuji Rock’s lineups often overlap with Splendour’s, we may even get the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Björk, the XX, as well as Wavves, The Polyphonic Spree, and Of Monsters And Men.
Alt-J (∆) Australian Tour 2013 Dates
Pre-sale tickets for Frontier Members are available from 2pm (AEDT) Wednesday until 2pm Thursday. General public tickets go on sale for Melbourne and Sydney shows at 9am (AEDT) on Wednesday 13 March; Perth tickets will be on sale at noon, local time, the same
Saturday 27 July – Challenge Stadium, Perth
Tuesday 30 July – Festival Hall, Melbourne
Wednesday 31 July – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
