Community
24 July, 2024
Eskimo Joe eager to perform in the North West for the first time
The Western Australian band will perform one show in Mount Isa on Friday night.
Eskimo Joe frontman Kav Temperley says the name of a city on a band’s touring poster can be enough to attract other musicians to that town.
He said even remote communities, such as Mount Isa, can attract major music acts if there is a local grassroots movement to spread word of mouth within the Australian music community.
“When bands come out to places like Mount Isa, they literally put you guys on the map by putting the city’s name on the touring posters,” Temperley told North West Weekly.
“But it’s a grassroots thing – if places like Mount Isa want to attract more great bands, they can try to put on a small festival – maybe ask your council for some financial support – that builds a platform that gets other bands talking about it.
“You’ll never get it right the first time around – but you have to stick it out – once you’ve built that platform it creates opportunities to attract other bands as well as encourage local musicians.”
With a musical career that spans 90s pop punk to emo-esque ballads and symphony orchestra performances, Eskimo Joe will play Mount Isa for the first time when they take the stage at the Civic Centre on Friday night as part of their national acoustic tour.
Speaking to North West Weekly from his West Australian home, Temperley said his bandmates were undaunted by the long distance travel.
“It’s a really long way – we fly from Perth which is a long way from everywhere – to Brisbane and then up to Mount Isa,” he said.
“We are pretty used to it – every time we do a tour and get on a plane its four hours of our lives that we never get back to get to the east coast – so we are pretty used to doing big travel days like that.
“We have done some pretty hectic travel days for this tour because we have been getting to a lot of country towns and everyone is always super appreciative when we get there – which we love.”
Temperley said the band had attempted to evolve with its audience over the past 25 years, increasingly playing shows in regional venues so that long-term fans were able to get to a live show.
“I have never been to Mount Isa and I am excited to play somewhere we have never played before,” he said.
“We used to play big festivals like the Big Day Out back in the day and I think the people who used to come out and see us back then are living in these rural areas now and have jobs and are raising families and so they aren’t interested or don’t have the time to make these big pilgrimages to cities to go to live shows – so I feel there’s more responsibility for bands like us to make the trip to go to them.
“This is also a really good opportunity for people to come along who might be fans of the band but have never seen us play live before.”
Temperley said the choice of an acoustic set list allowed the band to tell stories between songs that explain the history of the lyrics and the evolution of the music.
He said the laidback style of small venues also allowed the band to meet the audience in the foyer after the show to chat about their music.
“When you strip the music all back, you can hear it in its raw form – what it sounded like when you first wrote the song,” he said.
“We are song writers and I love to get to showcase that. We have done a few acoustic shows before but these are by far the best we’ve ever done.”
Eskimo Joe will play the Mount Isa Civic Centre on Friday at 7.30pm. Tickets are still available for purchase.