SUNNYBOYS – MAR ’15

SUNNYBOYS

Sunnyboys Live 495

The feel good story of 2014, Sunnyboys, announce a summer tour and the deluxe reissue of albums 2 & 3: INDIVIDUALS and GET SOME FUN.

The 2015 tour follows a series of sold-out east coast shows in 2013-2014, national theatre release of the feature-length documentary The Sunnyboy, a live appearance on ABC-TV show The Crack-Up for Mental Health Week and the deluxe re-issue of their rightly celebrated eponymous debut album. That a band could achieve all that interest some 30 years after they originally disbanded shows the respect in which they are held and the quality of the material they created in their brief but highly-charged original career.

The 2015 tour will include shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide plus a slot at the Perth International Arts Festival, just the second Sunnyboys appearance in the W.A. capital since 1984. Brisbane and Sydney fans will also be ecstatic to learn that in their respective towns Sunnyboys will be joined by former sparring partners, the legendary Riptides.

In the post-punk gloom of 1980-1982, the all-too-rare double-bill of Sunnyboys and Riptides became the stuff of legend, the best party in town. The Riptides anthemic show closer Shake It even provoking stage invasions long before it became de rigour. Although the initial life-span of the Riptides had them lasting just five years (1978 – 1983) their live legacy and tracks like ’77 Sunset Strip, Tomorrows Tears and Only Time have remained and the band have reformed sporadically over the years to great success, the last time being Brisbane’s 2006 Pig City festival which also featured the original Saints. More recently frontman Mark Callaghan has overseen the mixing of the Riptides debut album TOMBS OF GOLD. Recorded in 1982 but mixed just this year, TOMBS… is available right now on vinyl and CD – what took them so long!

Other guests on the February tour include The New Christs (Melbourne and Sydney) young punks Bad // Dreems (Adelaide) and Dom Mariani’s post-Stems vehicle DM3, in Perth.

Both Sunnyboys albums, meanwhile, are to be re-packaged and remastered with a bevy of bonus tracks, INDIVIDUALS in particular having a major overhaul with 8 of the original tracks stripped from the album completely and replaced by 8 alternative mixes found just last year in the archives of album producer Lobby Loyde. The original version of INDIVIDUALS has long been a thorn in the side of Sunnyboys, unhappy with the released versions and the decision by their record company to release it rather than remix it. The recently unearthed mixes have addressed that issue completely with the band declaring “The difference is amazing. It’s like a different album, fresh and dynamic – we look forward to playing it again”INDIVIDUALS is rounded out by the 7″ version of Show Me Some Discipline plus b-side Pain and a 5-song live session recorded in Sydney by Triple J in early 1982.

GET SOME FUN will comprise the complete album recording sessions including singles Love In A Box and Comes As No Surprise, four non-album tracks and a 5-track live performance taken from the infamous Narara Music Festival held on a farm in rural NSW in 1984. Even the mud and damp of the day can’t impact on the energy of the Sunnyboys in this fantastic live performance.

Both INDIVIDUALS and GET SOME FUN will come complete with detailed full colour booklets and are to be released in early 2015.

Tickets for SUNNYBOYS – IT’S A SUNNY DAY TOUR are to go on sale Friday 5th December (except where noted).