Top-quality music runs in the Bloodlines

TOMORROW

night is your only chance for 2018 to see one of Australia’s most acclaimed and respected singers and songwriters, Stephen Cummings, perform live in Hobart.

Melbourne-based Cummings has been a major figure in the Australian music scene since forming The Pelaco Brothers with Joe Camilleri back in 1974.

Two years later he started influential new-wave rock band The Sports, who released a string of popular singles including Boys (What Did the Detective Say?), Don’t Throw Stones, Strangers on a Train, How Come, When You Walk in the Room and Who Listens to the Radio? before breaking up in 1981.

Cummings then embarked on a successful and prolific solo career, starting with his 1984 debut solo album Senso, which featured the hit single Gymnasium.

He has gone on to release more than 20 solo albums, including 1988’s Lovetown — which is widely regarded as one of the top 50 Australian albums of all time — and his ARIA Award-winning 1989 follow-up A New Kind of Blue.

Cummings wrote his memoirs, Will It Be Funny Tomorrow, Billy? in 2009; penned the novels Wonderboy and Stay Away From Lightning Girl; and was the subject of the 2014 documentary Don’t Throw Stones.

In August, Mushroom Group subsidiary label Bloodlines announced that it would be re-releasing Cummings’ extensive solo catalogue, issuing a two-disc career anthology, and putting out Cummings’ forthcoming new record Prisoner of Love — which he says will be his final studio album.

To celebrate signing with Bloodlines, Stephen Cummings is touring the country this month, playing his only live shows for the year. He performs at the Republic Bar in North Hobart from 9.30pm tomorrow, joined by Melbourne-based US guitarist Sam Lemann.

Tickets are $28.43, go to www.moshtix.com.au for bookings.