ONE of Australia’s favourite bluegrass and country bands, the Flying Emus, will be back in Tamworth after many years between drinks.
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The band, comprising brother and sister John and Genni Kane, Ian Simpson and Mike Kerin, reformed in March last year for the CMC Rocks the Hunter festival and enjoyed playing together so much, they decided a few more gigs were on the cards.
Their Tamworth performance will be one show at The Longyard, where they used to play often.
“It is one of our favourite venues, and our old mates like The Bushwackers play there,” John said.
John said they didn’t rehearse for their CMC Rocks spot, but had been practising for their Tamworth show.
“It’s a little bit hard, but Mike lives up in the (Blue) Mountains and we had Simmo (Ian Simpson) on Skype from Perth,” he said.
“We were always a fairly spontaneous band and we never really tended to do the same show every night.
“We’d start out and then we would take a left turn, so I’m expecting lots of left turns, because for us it’s been a long time.”
Just before their Tamworth return they released a best-of collection covering their career highlights.
“We’ve been trying to do a ‘best-of’ thing for a while, and we just talked amongst ourselves and decided on the tracks,” John said.
“When you picked out the ones that were most popular at gigs, the ones that won awards like Golden Guitars and things and the ones we had hits with, it all just fell into place.”
John said they wanted to cover their five albums, the first being a cassette-only release, so it wasn’t too hard to pick the tracks.
Following their long-awaited Tamworth reunion they will do four gigs across Sydney, while Ian Simpson is still in the state.
“It’s all about reconnecting with old fans and people who hadn’t seen us before,” John said.
“Festivals are a good thing and we might do capital cities. We thought it had been a very long time ago and people didn’t really care, but we have been very pleased with the reaction we’ve had. Everyone’s still been involved in music, so I guess everyone is still aware of everyone’s careers.”
Peter Denahy will be the support act for their only Tamworth show today and it’s sure to be something special.
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