Cold Chisel Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Australian Tour

The Aussie icons will headline this year’s VAILO Adelaide 500 after-race concert as part of the tour.

Image by Daniel Boud

Cold Chisel are back with a bang and ready to celebrate their 50th anniversary with fans across the nation.

The rock icons have announced 11 shows across six states between October and November. ‘The Big Five-O Tour’ begins where it all started, in Armidale on Saturday, October 5. This is where the band was based between 1974 and 1975 while Don Walker completed his university studies.

Shows in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne will be held under a Big Top tent with a capacity of 10,000 with standing and seating areas. These shows are a callback to Chisel’s 1982 tour ‘An Evening with the Circus Animals’, which saw frontman Jimmy Barnes riding a motorbike along a trapeze wire while singing ‘Goodbye (Astrid, Goodbye)’.

The final performance of the tour will see Chisel return home to Adelaide and headline the VAILO Adelaide 500 Supercars post-race event.

Chisel has also invited along some very good friends to help celebrate their 50th anniversary, with ARIA Award-winning chart toppers The Cruel Sea, singer-songwriter Karen Lee Andrews, WA rockers Birds of Tokyo and Adelaide favourites The Superjesus playing select shows on the tour.

Tickets for ‘The 50th Anniversary Tour’ go on sale Tuesday, June 14 at 11:30am local time. Those signed up to Cold Chisel’s mailing list have the opportunity to score a limited number of pre-sale tickets this Friday, May 31 at 11:30am local time. You can sign up here.

Chisel fans can expect to hear all the band’s biggest hits including ‘Khe Sanh’, ‘Flame Trees’, ‘Cheap Wine’, ‘Bow River’, ‘All for You’, ‘Last Wave of Summer’, ‘Saturday Night’ and more.

“We’ll be going all out to celebrate a milestone birthday like this,” piano player and main songwriter Dan Walker says. “Bookending the tour in the two places where we first welded the band together, building these circus tent shows in 3 cities, bringing along some great guests and doing a set which reaches back across our whole song catalogue should all make “The Big Five-0” a tour to remember.”

Guitarist and singer Ian Moss adds; “We wanted to celebrate our 50th birthday by revisiting all of our best work from across the years. As we prepare the setlist, there are a minimum of 15 songs that our audience demands to hear. This time we’ll be playing all of them plus we’ll be throwing in lots of musical surprises as well.”
 
“Gold is obviously associated with 50th anniversaries” says bass player Phil Small, “so we thought it would be fun to pull the tour into Ballarat - Australia’s gold mining capital. We’re looking forward to playing the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong and Hobart too because each of those cities have been important to us in various ways over the last 50 years.”

As for frontman Jimmy Barnes’ thoughts on the tour; “Cold Chisel are never apart. We’re as close as brothers. Some of the best moments of my life have been spent on stage with those boys, and I hope we keep going ‘til the day we drop.

“There have been plenty of times where I never thought I’d live to see this day so I’m going to make the most of it. I can’t wait to celebrate with my mates and with all the fans who have been such a big part of our story. We’re gonna smash it!”

For full ticket details visit coldchisel.com.

COLD CHISEL ‘THE BIG FIVE-0’ AUSTRALIAN TOUR

with support from The Cruel Sea, Karen Lee Andrews, Birds of Tokyo and The Superjesus

Saturday, October 5 – Petersons Winery, Mount View, Armidale
with The Cruel Sea, Birds of Tokyo, The Superjesus & Karen Lee Andrews

Tuesday, October 8 - Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, Broadbeach, with Karen Lee Andrews

Friday, October 11 – The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park, Sydney
with The Cruel Sea & Karen Lee Andrews

Tuesday, October 15 – WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong
with Karen Lee Andrews

Saturday, October 19 – Sandalford Wines, Caversham
with Birds of Tokyo, The Cruel Sea, The Superjesus & Karen Lee Andrews

Friday, October 25 – Flemington Racecourse, Flemington
with The Cruel Sea & Karen Lee Andrews

Saturday, November 2 – Victoria Park, Brisbane
with The Cruel Sea & Karen Lee Andrews

Wednesday, November 6 – Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Broadmeadow
with Karen Lee Andrews

Saturday, November 9 – Victoria Park, Ballarat
with The Cruel Sea, Birds of Tokyo, The Superjesus & Karen Lee Andrews

Wednesday, November 13 – MyState Bank Arena, Glenorchy
with Karen Lee Andrews

Sunday, November 17 – VAILO Adelaide 500, Post Race Concert, Adelaide
with The Cruel Sea (and more)

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