NEXT ON AT THE AMPHI………. 

FRIDAY JUNE 8TH – UNDERSTAGE – DAVE STEEL

LEGENDARY GUITAR GREAT

Dave Steel is a veteran of the Australian music scene. He spent four years as the guitarist with Weddings, Parties, Anything, seven years as Archie Roach’s instrumentalist, has released ten solo albums, and been nominated for several ARIA awards. Dave has spent much of his life traveling both in Australia and in Europe, Asia, and North America, both in his own right as a performer, and as a sideman. His solo CD ‘Home Is A Hard Thing To Find’ was a final nominee in the 2002 Aria Awards for Best Blues and Roots Release. A song from that CD ‘Weary Blues’ was awarded Song of the Year by the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society.  Currently Dave works both solo, and with his band the Welcome Wagon, whose last release was a CD of blues-based material titled ‘Been On This Road Too Long’. The Welcome Wagon is Sandy Brady, upright and electric bass; and John ‘JP’ Parry, drums. They are regularly joined by legendary pianist Tony Hargreaves.  The release of ‘Blues and Ballads’ in December 2006 marked a welcome return to solo acoustic mode for Dave. The CD includes eight new original songs and four versions of old songs from the blues tradition. ‘Blues and Ballads’ is a deceptively simple acoustic recording which amply displays Dave’s instrumental and vocal talents and demonstrates the links between his own music and that of blues artists such as Rev. Gary Davis and Sleepy John Estes.  A Welcome Wagon show is a mixture of blues classics and more obscure material drawn from the deep well which is the blues, combined with original material of Dave’s, played in the tough unadorned style that this band has made its’ own.

TOBIAS MOLDENHAUER -  SATURDAY 21ST JULY – UNDERSTAGE

A guitarist/singer/songwriter of European background, Tobias recorded his solo demo in Germany 2005, before hitting the road to play music in both hemispheres. He has performed in a variety of countries, including Germany, Sweden, Italy, the Czech Republic, Samoa and Australia.   ‘Kings Cross Angel’ from the release ‘Ghosts on the Pavement’ was featured on the O.S.T of German TV movie ‘Tatort’ in 2009, performed by punk rock ensemble ‘paddelnohnekanu’.  The latest release “Live at the Red Shed” (produced by Giuseppe Vizzone of ‘Seaman Dan’ and ‘The Decomposers’) received radio airplay across Australia and was toured interstate. A performance of its opening track ‘Haunted Forest’ won the Abel Cottone Memorial Prize 2010 in Queensland and received 6th Place Instrumental Piece of the year 2011 in the nation-wide songwriting competition of the Australian Singer/Songwriter Association.  After a Western Australian solo tour in August 2011, he traveled to Europe to play rhythm guitar for German punk rock quartet ‘Mr. Paulsen and the time problem’.  Tobias opened shows for artists like Neil Murray, Victor Martinez and performed with musicians such as Angus Diggs (of Jeff Lang, Bob Brozman, Mia Dyson).  Solo performances feature effect pedal driven acoustic guitar, bottleneck slide resonator guitar, Hawaiian lap steel guitar and explore different genres with their roots in the blues. Melodic fingerpicking in open tunings coupled with soulful and haunting vocals, Tobias’ material draws on a wide variety of influences, though strives to put an original footprint onto the sands of contemporary acoustic guitar music.  Besides work on the new studio album ‘Solitary Bones’, 2012 sees the creation of a live trio with Jarrah Higgins on drums and Hugh Gilbert on bass. Early in the year the band has already excited theater audiences, presenting “a solid blues sound with excursions into a jazzy world of unconventional folk- and country music”.