By JESSE GRAHAM
THE Yarra Ranges is set to host an internationally acclaimed musician as he embarks on his first-ever solo tour, with Montrose and Healesville making up the entire Victorian leg of the journey.
Folk-pop musician Josh Pyke will perform at Montrose Town Centre and Healesville’s Memo Hall on Friday 6 and Saturday 7 June from 8pm for the opening of his Lone Wolf tour.
The local shows are the only two tour dates for Victoria in the tour and Pyke said that he was eager to see the Yarra Ranges – a place he has yet to visit.
“I’m always keen for nice venues to play in, and these venues sound really cool,” he said.
He said that audience members to his Lone Wolf shows can expect to see music from the whole way through his career – from his beginning with Feeding the Wolves and Memories and Dust to the Beginning and the End of Everything – re-imagined for a solo performance.
The only thing accompanying Pyke to the stage – apart from his loop pedal – will be musician Jack Carty, who will open at the shows.
A multiple ARIA award-winner, Pyke has sold out numerous large-scale venues across the state but said that he wants to treat all of his shows, large and small, as a shared experience between himself and the audience.
“I don’t think of them as separate things,” he said.
“I just try and treat them as an intimate engagement between me and the audience, let the experience be something that we’re sharing.”
Through the years since releasing his first songs, Pyke said that he’s experimented with different styles, structures and arrangements, and that he saw each of his albums as a natural development to his latest record, which he says is his favourite.
“It’s natural development, I hope, having more access to memories to draw on,” he said.
“When I was doing Memories and Dust, I had two jobs to help pay the bills – after that, I was able to quit my day jobs and focus on being a musician.”
“I would hope my skills have developed subsequently.”
Josh Pyke’s Lone Wolf shows will open at 8pm on Friday 6 June at Montrose Town Centre, and on Saturday 7 June at Healesville’s Memo Hall.
Tickets are $34, and all ages are able to attend the shows.
For more information, or to buy tickets, visit www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au or call 5966 4500.
