Time to dig up those hard rockers, again

LAST year The Hoodoo Gurus unleashed Dig It Up!, the festival where they toured the country with some of their favourite performers.

hoodoo gurus

LAST year The Hoodoo Gurus unleashed Dig It Up!, the festival where they toured the country with some of their favourite performers.

Among them were the '60s garage rock band The Sonics, making their first Australian visit, and in the expanded events in Sydney and Melbourne, the return to the stage of The Sunnyboys. Those who saw that slice of rock'n'roll history will never forget it, but how do you top that?

It turns out the Gurus are giving it a shot for a second year, with a line-up featuring power-pop legends The Flaming Groovies and US hard rock heroes Blue Oyster Cult making their first Australian tour.

"It's harder for us this time because last year people were taken by surprise; they didn't know how great it was going to be," Gurus singer Dave Faulkner says.

While Groovies founder Cyril Jordan has toured Australia, on this occasion he is reunited with guitarist Chris Wilson and bassist George Alexander who played in the '70s line-up that produced power-pop anthem Shake Some Action and the album of the same name.

"I discovered them through the punk rock thing," Faulkner recalls of hearing the band for the first time home in Perth. "The Groovies weren't part of punk but they were one of those bands that were still considered cool."

Kim Salmon, later of The Scientists, was a friend of Faulkner's in Perth in the '70s and introduced him to Blue Oyster Cult.

As with last year's Dig It Up!, the tour has smaller shows in other cities but a festival line-up in Sydney and Melbourne also featuring Manchester's punk veterans The Buzzcocks, Perth's The Stems and American songwriter Peter Case, another punk-era graduate with his bands The Nerves and The Plimsouls.

And how is the homework going, brushing up on Mars Needs Guitars?

"We have played all of the songs at some point, songs like Bittersweet we play often but some others we don't. As we found with Stoneage Romeos last year, playing them all at once is a very different thing."

Faulkner loves the chance to introduce some of his favourite bands to an Australian audience.

"I like seeing some of these bands that wouldn't get a guernsey anywhere else. No one thought of doing this until it was here and when they saw it they said, 'Of course, why not?'

"We aren't trying to get people in for one act only. It's a rock'n'roll audience that likes to get into the place and get off."

SEE Dig It Up!, Hoodoo Gurus Invitational 2013,

QLD: April 18 - The Tivoli, Brisbane

NSW: April 19 - Twin Towns, Tweed Heads; April 21 - Enmore Theatre and Surrounds

VIC: April 25 - The Palace Theatre and Surrounds

SA: April 26 - HQ, Adelaide

WA: April 28 - Astor Theatre, Perth

Tickets on sale Friday 8 February. For details see digitup.net.au