TICKET PRICES
VIP Meet and Greet $99+BF
A Reserve $45+BF
B Reserve $35+BF

MEET & GREET PACKAGE
VIP Ticket in Front 2 Rows
Access to Soundcheck
Meet Steve Balbi
Signed Full Colour Poster

BALBI BESPEAKS BOWIE ‘N’ LENNON, EXPLORING THE DIRTY ROTTEN GROOVE OF RADIOHEAD.

The music of the artist, composer, and producer – Steve Balbi – mines a kaleidoscope of life at the margins. Coalescing melody, sophistication, and soul, Balbi bespeaks Bowie and Lennon, meanwhile exploring the diversity, refinement, and dirty rotten groove of Radiohead. Exclusive to the Avoca Beach Theatre – for one night only – and for the first time since his sold-out show at the Sydney Opera House in August last year, Balbi returns to the stage with his 7-piece all-star band. Featuring Jak Housden (Tim Minchin, The Whitlams), Colin Coorie (Tim Finn, Richard Clapton), Dario Bortolin (Baby Animals), Robyn Loau (Girlfriend), Miranda Carey (The Voice), Pete Drummond (Dragon, Southern Sons), and Sean ‘Motley’ Hackett (Lighting Design – KISS, INXS), this show promises a spectacle that is not to be missed!

Perhaps better known as the founding member and producer of Noiseworks, Electric Hippies, and the frontman of 1980s new-wavers Mi-Sex, don’t miss the chance to witness Balbi’s eclectic sensibility, featuring an all-star band, live on stage.

The Artist. Balbi’s debut solo LP Black Rainbow (2013) and its surreal reprise Rainbow Black (2016) provided a musical departure from Noiseworks, Electric Hippies, and Universe for the creative chameleon, before I Think I Know For Sure (2022) posited us back to the present. Balbi’s last LP Breakdown (2024) is beautiful but distorted, daunting but heavenly, enlightening and evocative yet melancholic and intoxicating.

The Composer. Balbi’s new single ‘No Place We Can Go’ is a cowrite with Australia’s leading Bluesman, Ash Grunwald, who smokes a scintillating solo on the track too. Yet it’s anything but conventional rock ‘n’ roll, more indie rock, if not inventive blues, characterised by Balbi’s spit box guitar sound. The new track also features the magnificent voice of Miranda Carey, who embellished the title track of Balbi’s latest LP, Breakdown.

The Producer. Balbi’s studio credits include Andrew Farris (INXS), Christine Anu, Glenn Shorrock, Jenny Morris, Dylan Frost (Sticky Fingers), Nika Costa, Dave Gleeson (The Screaming Jets), and Camino Gold, among many others. The chameleon also created vocal arrangements and played acoustic guitar on David Bowie’s Hours, with producer Marius de Vries (Madonna, Björk, et al.), and on the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s Academy Award winning Moulin Rouge.

“This is the sound of Steve’s heart… right here! It is an invitation to connect with him and everything around him that he considers important. I find his lyrics deliberate, pointed, and powerful, never saying something he doesn’t believe in. I love it! And I love that it isn’t at all what I expected. I expected heavy rock or something… I don’t even know what! I’m completely ecstatic to have been so wrong.” – Kate Ceberano

SUPPORTED BY CAMINO GOLD

Camino Gold is a Newcastle-based indie band that carves a sonic path from the Australian Surf Coast to California, via Brooklyn. Coalescing a party that transcends indie-pop and surf-rock, driven by relaxed tones, dreamscape guitars, and cruisy vibes that meddle with reggae rhythms, Camino Gold touches-up the Alpha-G with colour, commentary, and composition.