By JESSE GRAHAM
AN ’80s Melbourne music icon will take to the stage in Montrose next month, performing his greatest hits, along with a few other tunes, in a special one-off show.
Mick Thomas and the Roving Commission will perform at Montrose Town Centre on Thursday 23 July, and spoke to the Mail last week in the lead-up to the show.
Mr Thomas said the audience at the Montrose can expect to hear songs from his days in Weddings Parties Anything, as well as a few more recent pieces.
“If they keep their minds open, there might be something new, something they haven’t heard before,” he said.
“I’m just happy to be out there playing again – it’s something you don’t do as much as you used to.”
Mr Thomas has been playing music for more than 25 years, in a number of different bands, including Weddings Parties Anything and his latest venture, Mick Thomas and the Roving Commission.
When asked what inspired him to start playing music, Mr Thomas said that, for him, it was all he wanted to do.
“I was from a reasonably educated background, and it certainly wasn’t because it was all I could do – it was all I wanted to do,” he said.
“As a kid born in the 1960s, growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, when music was really at the forefront of pop culture, it was more than it was now – music is just one thing young people do now, but in the ’60s and ’70s, it was definitely the vanguard of popular culture.
“It was always, whether I admitted it to my parents or not, the thing that really got me excited.”
Fast forward a few decades, Mr Thomas has a range of records released through different projects, and, along with Weddings’ Squeezebox Wally, has a “keen, small band” of four to perform at Montrose.
“It’s a good band – we really like the line-up and like where we’re getting to, repertoire-wise,” Mr Thomas said.
Mick Thomas and the Roving Commission will perform at Montrose Town Centre, 935 Mt Dandenong Tourist Road, from 8pm, on Thursday 23 July.
Tickets are $30 for adults, $25 for concession holders.
For more information, or to buy tickets, visit ach.yarraranges.vic.gov.au or call 1300 368 333.
