Live at the Bowl line-up revealed for summer of entertainment

The Sidney Myer Music Bowl is set to be transformed for Melbourne’s COVID summer. This is when tickets go on sale.

Missy Higgins with Vika and Linda Bull are bringing music back to the Bowl. Pict Ian Currie

Live entertainment will return to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl with COVID-safe concerts running January through March.

Live at the Bowl will feature artists including Missy Higgins, Vika and Linda, Birds of Tokyo, Sampa the Great, Human Nature, Lime Cordiale, Daryl Braithwaite, Jon Stevens, The Black Sorrows Ocean Alley, Teeny Tiny Stevies, Carl Cox, Piknic Electronik and comedian Hannah Gadsby.

Only 3000 tickets – 25 per cent of the Bowl’s normal capacity – will be sold for each show, with the venue in the process of having private “decks” set up on the lawn for groups of four to six people known to each other.

The stalls near the front of the stage are being renovated to feature tables over tiered levels to seat either pairs or groups of four; the two side balconies will be available for those who wish to attend solo or with a guest.

Bars will be cashless and contactless, while food trucks will operate using an app.

Higgins, who has already played a seated COVID-safe show in Albury, is looking forward to returning to hometown audiences when she plays on January 27 with Busby Marou.

“When we played in Albury, there was just a sense in the air of such excitement and relief to be back at a live music show again,” Higgins said.

“I was so excited, and I could tell that the audience was happy things were getting back to normal. And that’s how it feels in Melbourne. 

“I love playing at the Bowl, it just feels so iconic. You grow up seeing shows here, it feels like our equivalent of the Sydney Opera House.

“It just has this grand feeling, when you play here. it feels like a special event.”

For Vika and Linda Bull, who have had a No.1 and a No.2 album in 2020, they will play their first headline show at the Bowl on February 14, having performed at the venue as part of Paul Kelly’s band before.

“We are very grateful for everything that’s happened this year,” Vika said. “We’re a couple of girls in our 50s who can still work and have people who still want to hear us sing. We’re proud of our past as backing singers for Paul Kelly and the Black Sorrows, but we don’t want to be known as that anymore, we want to be known as lead singers.”

Tickets for all the Live at the Bowl shows go on sale this Wednesday, full line-up and details at liveatthebowl.com.au