Brisbane Festival: Pop-up gigs to serenade city streets and cul-de-sacs
‘I’m just really happy to have a gig, to be honest, even if there’s only two people there,’ said country singer-songwriter Troy Cassar-Daley.
Musicians tend to spend their careers hoping to cram as many people as possible into their shows, but on Friday country singer-songwriter Troy Cassar-Daley will open an unusual series of pop-up Brisbane Festival gigs with a twist: to discourage flash mobs, neither artists nor organisers will publicise the locations in advance.
“The weirdest thing is, normally you’ve got to promote the hell out of things to make sure people show up — but with this one, because they’re staying quiet with COVID conditions in place, we’ll just start playing,” he said with a laugh.
Dubbed Street Serenades, the series of cul-de-sac and public park gigs are designed to bring music to every suburb across Brisbane during the city’s annual arts festival, which runs until September 26.
“Hopefully people will stop and have a bit of a look, and there’ll be some sort of audience,” said Cassar-Daley, who has released 11 albums since 1995 and collected 37 Golden Guitar awards. “I’m just really happy to have a gig, to be honest, even if there’s only two people there. If I find one of these shows in my street, I’ll be stopping to have a good listen.”
Street Serenades is the brainchild of Brisbane Festival director Louise Bezzina, who recently told The Australian: “Closer to the time, we’ll let communities know that we’re coming — but it has to be in a very localised, no-mass-gathering way. That’s the challenge: it’s a kind of anti-marketing campaign.”
For Cassar-Daley and keyboard player Vaughan Jones, the Friday night gig will be just their third concert since the national live music industry shut down in mid-March.
Last month, the pair played a couple of limited-capacity seated shows at inner-city venue The Triffid, with a couple more similarly restricted gigs to come in the months ahead.
“I’ve never done a pop-up show before, so this is a new concept for me, too,” said Cassar-Daley, a former busker. “But under these situations we’re in with COVID, we just have to start to adapt. ”
The concert series begins this weekend with inner-city performances from artists such as Jaguar Jonze, Tyrone Noonan and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, while Brisbane’s northern suburbs will see the likes of indie folk duo The Dreggs and choir group The Australian Voices popping up in several public parks.
“The arts has taken a real hit with COVID, and there’s a lot of people who have relied wholly and solely on music as their main income, so to have a chance to get these people employed [again], it’s going to be a wonderful experience,” said Cassar-Daley.
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