For Sunday Lemonade, partners in life and music, no gig is too far
With its blend of sweetly sung indie pop and folk music, Sunday Lemonade was always going to stand out from the crowd of buskers at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
With its blend of indie pop and folk music, Sunday Lemonade was always going to stand out from the crowd at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
The duo’s energetic, engaging approach to street performance first turned heads last year on Peel Street, where up to 400 buskers stake out their allotted spots to share their songs during the annual festival’s 10-day run.
Reception to their act was so strong that they made it to the top 10 in the annual busking championships, held before a big crowd at Bicentennial Park.
That taste of the limelight on the big stage wasn’t enough, however: this time, they’re in it to win it, while also winning plenty of new fans along the way and selling out their stocks of CDs.
“We’re giving it our biggest, red-hot go,” said Tyson Richardson with a laugh. “I think we’ve both got it in our heads that we’re just going to keep coming until we win.”
Getting to the nation’s capital of country music wasn’t quite so smooth this time around, however.
Though based on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, the nomadic duo spends most of the year living out of a van, and driving from gig to gig.
When the rear axle of their van conked out in WA in December, they were stranded and left pondering spending their savings – earmarked for recording costs – on a $7581 mechanic’s bill.
A couple of social media posts to their followers swiftly solved the problem, though: a GoFundMe page met that goal in less than a day, and the pair ended up with $9430 raised from 130 donations, allowing them to fix the van and resume their journey east.
“It changed something in my brain, that whole process,” said Laura Kirkup. “It made me feel so valued, and made me think that all this hard work that we’ve been doing – travelling here, there and everywhere – is important.”
Aged in their late 20s, Sunday Lemonade are partners in life, too, with much of their five years as a couple spent in close confines.
“A friend said that, because we’ve been together so long, living in the van, it’s like four times the amount of time, because you’re always in each other’s space – so technically, we’ve been together for 20 years,” Kirkup joked.
Their fixed van is being put to work in emphatic fashion: after a final busking session on Wednesday, the duo was driving 1080km south to support indie rock act The Rubens for two shows at Lake Tyers, Victoria.
They’ll then make the 12-hour return journey for two last Tamworth shows on Saturday evening, at the FanZone stage and Services Club.
“We’re at the very end of our tour, so we thought we’d finish it off with a bang,” said Kirkup.
The writer travelled to Tamworth as a guest of Tamworth Regional Council.
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