One of Australia’s most revered artists, Paul Kelly is set to perform his largest ever headline shows to date this August/September – proudly presented by Frontier Touring and Triple M.
In a tour update today, Frontier Touring advises that Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit will no longer be joining the tour due to unforeseen circumstances.
We are excited to welcome as special guest one of America’s most celebrated songwriters – three-time GRAMMY winner Lucinda Williams and her band. Known for her raw, poetic songwriting, Williams will bring her internationally acclaimed catalogue along with her esteemed band to stages nationwide, opening for Kelly across all Australian dates.
A pioneering artist with more than 40 years in music and 15 studio albums, Williams has received 17 GRAMMY nominations and was named Songwriter of the Year by Time Magazine in 2001. In 2024, she was ranked #8 on American Songwriter’s list of the 10 Greatest Female Songwriters of All Time. She is among the most nominated artists in the history of the Americana Music Honors & Awards. Her 2023 memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, was named Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and Rolling Stone. Her latest release is Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road – Vol. 7 in her Lu’s Jukebox series, where she reinterprets classics by artists such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Tom Petty.
Joining both Kelly and Williams and opening all shows across Australia is two-time ARIA and nine-time CMAA Golden Guitar winner Fanny Lumsden.
With one Melbourne show already sold out and the second not far behind, fans should not delay in grabbing tickets for Paul Kelly’s only live performances for 2025. Featuring 10 arena dates across Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland, accompanied by his incredible live band – Peter Luscombe (drums), Bill McDonald (bass), Dan Kelly (guitar), Cameron Bruce (keys), Jess Hitchcock (vocals), and Ash Naylor (guitar) – these shows promise to be unforgettable.
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Paul Kelly today announces his biggest shows in Australia and New Zealand to date, and his only live shows for 2025: nine huge arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Melbourne, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in August/September 2025… proudly presented by Frontier Touring, Triple M (AU) and Stuff (NZ).
Today’s tour news comes in the lead up to Kelly’s forthcoming studio album, Fever Longing Still, to be released November 1 and available for preorder now. His first album of new original material since 2018’s Nature, Fever Longing Still delivers 12 additions to a superb catalogue of love songs spanning more than 40 years. The title comes from a line in Sonnet 147 by Shakespeare, whose writing has thrilled and inspired Kelly ever since schooldays. Led by singles ‘Taught By Experts’ and ‘Houndstooth Dress’, it’s an album driven by a band in peak form – who fans can witness live onstage next year.
Awarded the Order of Australia in 2017 and with 17 ARIAs and five APRAs, few songwriters find ways to keep that creative fever burning for as long and as brightly as Kelly. The country of his birth, its emotional interior and geographical landscape, its heroes and villains, our hopes and failings, have all been a constant in Kelly’s long list of Australian-set songs: ‘To Her Door’, ‘Leaps and Bounds’, ‘From St Kilda To King’s Cross’, ‘How To Make Gravy’, ‘When I First Met Your Ma’, ‘Dumb Things’, ‘Before Too Long’… the list is endless. He has written about the country’s greatest cricketer, ‘Bradman’, and its most infamous bushranger, Ned Kelly, in ‘Our Sunshine’. ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’, co-written with Kev Carmody, has taught more Australians about the history of the battle for land rights than newspaper headlines ever could.
From live recordings and compilations albums, Christmas standards and originals, variety has long been a key to Kelly’s recording career, which includes albums ranging from bluegrass and country (Smoke and Foggy Highway) to funk and soul (Professor Ratbaggy, The Merri Soul Sessions), alongside classic records such as Gossip, and Post. Kelly’s decades of touring have seen him play the kind of shows fans never forget.
In Australia, Kelly will be joined by special guest Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Possessing “one of the strongest, truest voices in American roots rock” (Allmusic), the six-time GRAMMY winner emerged from Alabama as a member of Drive-By Truckers, before going solo with 2007’s Sirens of the Ditch. Together with his collective, Isbell’s latest release – 2023’s Weathervanes – won Best Americana Album at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. Written while he was an actor on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, the album features the rolling thunder of Isbell’s fearsome live band the 400 Unit, who’ve earned a place in the rock ‘n’ roll cosmos alongside the greatest backing ensembles, as powerful and essential to the storytelling as The E Street Band or the Wailers.
Opening proceedings in Australia is 2x ARIA and 9x CMAA Golden Guitar winner Fanny Lumsden, whose gone from growing up on a sheep farm in western NSW to playing Glastonbury. Her album HEY DAWN debuted at #1 on the ARIA Australian Album charts and was the fourth-highest selling country album of last year. Says The Australian, “One of the genre’s most esteemed performers”.
Meanwhile in New Zealand, singer/songwriter Reb Fountain invokes a blend of folk, art-pop and rock unrivalled in Aotearoa. After standout performances at WOMADelaide and extensively touring in Europe with Marlon Williams, Fountain’s reputation for an exceptional live show has gone global, her new single ‘Come Down’ out now.
Tickets to all shows will go on sale Wednesday 30 October (3pm local time) via frontiertouring.com/paulkelly. Frontier Members can get early access via the Frontier Members presale, which starts Monday 28 October (3pm local time) – see website for full details.
With his incredible live band by his side – including members Peter Luscombe (drums), Bill McDonald (bass), Dan Kelly (guitar), Cameron Bruce (keys), Jess Hitchcock (vocals), and Ash Naylor (guitar) – Paul Kelly live is not to be missed. Tickets on sale next week!