WHEN Mark Seymour walks onto the stage at The Union Theatre in Wonthaggi this Friday, audiences won’t just be treated to a live concert, they’ll be stepping into a time machine that travels through four decades of Australian songwriting.
“It’s a big show,” Seymour stated in conversation with the Sentinel-Times over the weekend.
“The songs cover a period of 40 years, but given it’s in a theatre we can kind of go anywhere – it’s a fairly intimate environment. I tend to design the show around the kind of room we’re playing in.”
Audiences can expect a steady build-up inside the walls of The Union by the frontman of Hunters and Collectors.
“Rather than go out hard and rock from the get-go – it’s a whole different experience to playing in a pub. I also take the opportunity to talk a lot more now – I talk about the roots of the material, where it comes from, the characters involved, and the time and place where I was – a little bit of history. I think people appreciate that,” Seymour continued, noting guests will be treated to a good story behind the Holy Grail.
With enduring hits including Last Ditch Cabaret, Throw Your Arms Around Me, When The River Runs Dry, True Tears of Joy, and the anthemic single Holy Grail, the discography is limitless for Friday evening, particularly with Mark Seymour and The Undertow releasing two albums in the last five years.
“I’ve always written in a sort of survival state of mind,” he said.
“I’m always working on the next song. It’s very much about the present – what books I’m reading, what’s going on in the world. The songs are documents, so when they become famous over a long period, other questions feed into that connection – questions that don’t necessarily have much to do with me, and I find that really fascinating, it’s a mysterious nature the connection with the structure of a song.”
Fans can expect to hear Waiting On The Kid from the latest album The Boxer.
“There’s a song on the new album which I really like playing. It’s very reflective, it’s valid, current and really documents quite recent events in my life in a really positive way. It’s quite sad, but it’s very strong.”
A talented singer and later songwriter, Seymour found his calling in childhood.
“When I was very little, I wanted to sing. I had a really strong sense of identity, everything came into focus when I sang.
“The family was quite musical. We used to perform a lot, but I remember the distinct feeling when I was a little kid singing in front of my relatives, I just had a really strong sense of power and identity and it’s never really gone away.
“The lyric, the songwriting, came a lot later, but that was also a switch. I remember making the decision to write a song, and it was my life depended on it. It was towards the end of uni, and I thought this is what I want to do.”
Performing the album Slow Dawn to an empty Forum Theatre in Melbourne during lockdown (with permission) when stages globally sat silent, Seymour felt encouraged to keep going.
“You had to learn to live with stillness,” he said, and through the positive peacefulness came renewed creativity and productiveness.
While the music industry has transformed – from record stores to streaming, from royalties to publicity – Seymour remains enthused.
“There’s less pressure now. The format is gone. Pop music’s more diverse, and that’s good.”
A highlight of his career was performing with Hunters and Collectors in front of 80,000 people at the MCG Sound Relief concert in 2009 surrounded by one of the most incredible line ups of Australian musical history.
“It was spine-tingling – the sheer scale of it to walk out. The band hadn’t played for 10 years, and we played about half a dozen songs, I didn’t think Hunters and Collectors would ever play again.”
Now backed by The Undertow – Cameron McKenzie, Peter Maslen, and John Favaro – Seymour is working on an anthology and writing a second book on songwriting.
“And I’m noodling on the guitar in the background. Those two things will emerge next year in 2026.”
So dust off your dancing shoes and book your tickets to see Mark Seymour & The Undertow at The Union Theatre this Friday, May 9, at 7.30pm.
EXCLUSIVE: Win a double pass to see Mark Seymour & The Undertow this Friday, along with a Union Theatre centenary prize pack. The winner will be drawn at random on Thursday afternoon (May 8) and contacted via phone and email. Their name will also be announced on social media. To enter, email your name and contact details to news@sgst.com.au. If the winner cannot be reached, additional names will be drawn from 9am on Friday.