Great Southern Nights gig series to kickstart NSW live music sector
More than 1000 COVID-safe concerts will be held across NSW in November, including by Missy Higgins and Jimmy Barnes.
After more than six months of silence, live music is returning to the nation’s most populous state as 1000 COVID-safe concerts take place across NSW this month as part of the Great Southern Nights initiative to revive the struggling entertainment sector.
Performers booked under the state government and Australian Recording Industry Association initiative to play socially distanced shows include popular artists such as Missy Higgins, Jimmy Barnes and Amy Shark, and a raft of emerging local acts.
The last time that readers of The Australian saw singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko, in April, she was heavily pregnant while performing a moving cover of a Talking Heads song in her lounge room for our Isolation Room video series.
From Tuesday, Blasko will return to the stage for the first time since the birth of her second son for a run of 12 intimate solo gigs in six days at the 50-capacity Old 505 Theatre in Newtown, as well as bigger rooms in the City Recital Hall (November 21) and University of Wollongong Great Hall (November 25).
“It is a great idea, and it’s a good kickstart for people to feel like they’re getting back into it,” said Blasko of Great Southern Nights.
“It is really important for people, if they can, to start supporting these shows, because it’s a help in recovery for some people — but it’s certainly not going to sustain anybody for the long-term.”
“Everybody needs to be aware that the music industry, amongst plenty of other industries, is really in dire straits at the moment.
“And unfortunately an initiative like this isn’t going to be enough to save a lot of venues.”
A recently published open letter from business owners to the NSW government suggested that 85 per cent of the state’s live music venues risked closure within the next 12 months without government intervention such as stimulus packages announced in Queensland and Victoria.
The open letter, titled Save Our Stages NSW, noted that live performance fees make up about 70 per cent of artists’ income, but the enforced disconnection from audiences has stung, too.
“A lot of artists are pretty sensitive, emotional people that rely on that outlet a lot,” said Blasko.
“It’s a very community-based thing as well, and to have all of that taken away for an extended period of time has been really difficult for a lot of people.”
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