Griffith guitarist Rob Fattore performs with Mark Gable and The Choirboys in Griffith in 2019. Photo: Robert Fattore Facebook.
Veteran Australian hard-rock band The Choirboys will visit Griffith and Albury in April 2025 as part of their Run to Paradise tour of the eastern states.
The group last visited Griffith in 2019 when it performed at the Rewind in the Vines festival.
Local guitarist Rob Fattore got to perform on stage with the band on that occasion.
“To play with Ian Hulme [bass] and the late Lindsay Tebbett [drums] was an out-of-body experience,” Rob said.
”What a rhythm section. And of course, the incredible Mark Gable up the front as the iconic Aussie rock frontman was crazy.
”My band Desert Ratz actually supported The Choirboys at the Yoogali club in the 1980s. It was the best musical experience of my life.”
Region caught up with Choirboys lead Gable to ask him about his love of regional towns, how much harder it would be for a Choirboys-style band to make it big in 2024, what concertgoers can expect and what it’s like doing late-night shows at age 74 after 47 years of touring.
Your upcoming tour covers a lot of small towns like Griffith, Albury, Thirroul and Dubbo. What is it you like about regional Australia?
We love it. We go in as visitors, we are there working – but I wouldn’t really call getting up on stage and playing rock ‘n’ roll working. I have a lot of photos from towns like Griffith on file from the 1960s as I’m an amateur photographer. It’s great just hanging out in these country towns.
It’s weird how people gravitate to country towns. You have to remember Cold Chisel’s Ian Moss was born in Alice Springs and Don Walker was born in Ayr in Queensland.
People expected a voice like Ian Moss’s to come from a big city like New York or Sydney, but Alice Springs? It’s amazing.
Given the decline of live music and rise of the internet, how much harder would it be for a pub rock band like The Choirboys to emerge in 2024?
A lot has been killed by the internet; however, you’ve got bands breaking through having worldwide success from Australia, which wasn’t possible before.
Before, we had to go through middlemen. You had to get an agent, you had to get a recording company, a publishing company, you had to work with the press and get the radio to play you. There were all these middlemen with whom you had to deal.
But now you have a band like Little Quirks that got their break because of the internet and social media, so it’s a different world and in many ways it’s a better world.
But on the other hand, social media relies more on image, so the songs aren’t as good as what they used to be.
Are you glad you emerged in the late 1970s rather than now?
Yeah, it was unbelievable. You had Men at Work, ACDC, INXS, Midnight Oil, The Angels and The Divinyls. ACDC may never have happened if Angus, Malcolm and George had stayed in Glasgow … the fact that they were exported to Australia as immigrants and started a band when the pub scene was at its biggest [helped them] break big and become one of the biggest bands in the world.
I’m so lucky to have been around all those bands.
How do you go with late-night shows at age 74?
I hate the late nights. I deal with it, but for decades I’ve been going to bed before 9 pm and I wake up at 5 am regardless of when I go to bed.
What can people expect on your upcoming tour?
I always loved to tour with other bands and go backstage and listen to their stories, which are unbelievable.
We’re going to tell you all the naughty stories.
In next year’s tour, The Choirboys will perform at Griffith Regional Theatre on 4 April and at Albury Entertainment Centre on 5 April. Tickets are available to buy on their website.
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