Cold Chisel tour

Thu 21st Jul, 2011 in Local News

Cold Chisel have announced a massive 26 date trek that will kick off in October and finish on the first weekend of December and take the band from Darwin to Hobart and from Coffs Harbour to Margaret River. Support on the tour comes from You Am I, Even, Stonefield, Grinspoon and Dan Sultan.

The ‘Light The Nitro’ tour is the biggest tour for Chisel in nearly 30 years and coinciding with the announcement of the tour all of the band’s recordings, including 56 rare and previously unreleased tracks, have been made available digitally for the first time. The Cold Chisel back catalogue has also been newly remastered and repackaged with bonus DVDs containing rare and previously unreleased footage.

Jimmy Barnes says that the plans for the tour and reissues began nearly two years ago when the band played a one-off show to over 50,000 people at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium. “We got such a buzz from that gig that it made all of us really want to get our act together. We wanted to do things properly though because we know this band means a lot to a lot of people – especially us! So we had to do it right. That meant taking time to find lots of cool unreleased stuff and getting the albums looking and sounding great. It also meant making all the music available everywhere that people might want to get it these days. We agreed that once that was sorted we’d go out and play all those songs right around Australia and New Zealand in a way that we haven’t really done since the early 80s.”

The death of the group’s drummer, Steve Prestwich, in January briefly halted the plans, but keyboardist Don Walker says that when the band finally sat down to talk about it they realised they all felt the same way – “Steve was really keen on seeing all these things happen. We all felt it would have been wrong to just walk away from the plans we’d started together.” Charley Drayton (Keith Richards, B52’s, Divinyls) will be behind the kit for the Light The Nitro tour and one fifth of tour profits will go to Steve Prestwich’s children.

Cold Chisel ‘Light The Nitro’ tour:

Thursday 13 October – Newcastle Panthers (with Even)
Wednesday 19 October – Townsville Entertainment Centre (with You Am I)
Friday 21 October – Cairns Showgrounds (with You Am I)
Sunday 23 October – Botanic Gardens Amphitheatre, Darwin (with You Am I)
Wednesday 26 October – Mackay Showgrounds (with You Am I)
Thursday 27 October – Rockhampton Showgrounds (with You Am I)
Saturday 29 October – Stockland Park, Sunshine Coast (with Grinspoon)
Sunday 30 October – Gold Coast Convention Centre (with You Am I)
Tuesday 1 November – Brisbane Entertainment Centre (with You Am I)
Friday 4 November – Stadium Drive Hockey Fields, Coffs Harbour (with You Am I)
Saturday 5 November – Robert Oatley Vineyards, Mudgee (with You Am I, Stonefield)
Monday 7 November – Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre (with You Am I)
Thursday 10 November – Acer Arena, Sydney (with You Am I)
Saturday 12 November – Bimbadgen Winery, Hunter Valley (with Dan Sultan, Stonefield)
Sunday 13 November – WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong (with You Am I)
Tuesday 15 November – Sydney Entertainment Centre (with You Am I)
Thursday 17 November – AIS Arena, Canberra (with You Am I)
Friday 18 November – Gateway Lakes, Wodonga (with You Am I)
Saturday 19 November – Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley (with You Am I, Stonefield)
Tuesday 22 November – Derwent Entertainment Centre, Hobart (with You Am I)
Thursday 24 November – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne (with You Am I)
Saturday 26 November – Sandalford Estate, Margaret River (guest TBA)
Sunday 27 November – Belvoir Amphitheatre, Perth (guest TBA)
Tuesday 29 November – Adelaide Entertainment Centre (with You Am I)
Friday 2 December – TSB Arena, Wellington (guest TBA)
Saturday 3 December – Vector Arena, Auckland (guest TBA)

Tickets onsale from 9.00am on Thursday 4th August