Jazz icon Emma Pask returns to the Tanks Arts Centre

Find out how a song flub made Cairns one of renowned jazz singer Emma Pask’s favourite spots to perform.

AUSTRALIA jazz icon Emma Pask is looking forward to returning to the Tanks Arts Centre on her latest regional tour.

Cairns holds a special place in the renowned artist’s heart, after a flub during her last gig at the Tanks in 2014 became a tour highlight.

“We decided to play a beautiful ballad called Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael,” she says.

“I’ve been singing that song for over 20 years, but for some reason, that night in Cairns, in the beautiful romantic beginning of the song, I forgot the second line.

Award winning Australian vocalist Emma Pask will perform at the Tanks Arts Centre.

“I sang the first line: ‘And now the purple dusk of twilight time’, but when I got to the second line: ‘steals across the meadows of my heart’, my brain just blanked.

“Instead of continuing on, I was looking at the audience with eyes like a deer in headlights and had to say, ‘guys I’m so sorry, I forgot’ and we stopped playing.

“But the audience were so loving – they laughed, they even started yelling out what they thought the second line might be.

“In the end, we just skipped the second line, pretended it never happened, and they were so kind to us.

“Of course, when the concert ended and they were cheering for an encore, what else could I come out with but the second lyric of the song.”

Pask says she can’t imagine getting away with a flub like that anywhere outside of Cairns.

“The crowd loved it, and it’s become such a hilarious story with other artists on the road,” she says.

Emma has appeared on 2013’s The Voice, performed at the wedding of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban, and released six albums, with a seventh on the way.

Pask says audiences can look forward to material from her next record making its way into her performance at the Tanks.

“For me, I just want to be on the road all the time,” she says.

“When we have to record, I treat it like just playing another gig over two days.

“It’s great to play new material on the road – you get a chance to live the songs before you go into the studio and put them down.”

An Australian jazz music icon, Emma is sure to delight as she interweaves storytelling through timeless swinging jazz standards, upbeat Latin rhythms, tender ballads and some raucous blues.

Emma Pask will play the Tanks July 19, 6.30-7.30pm at Tank 5. Tickets $35, $30 concession available at ticketlink.com.au

Originally published as Jazz icon Emma Pask returns to the Tanks Arts Centre