US born country star is back on stage

AFTER quite a long layoff, two-time Golden Guitar nominee and local country singer Doug Bruce and his band, the Tailgaters, are back rocking stages.

Due to a scheduled break, to avoid burnout, and then the pandemic, it had been nearly five years since Bruce and the band had been in action.

But after a couple of smaller gigs in regional Victoria and Frankston, Doug Bruce and the Travellers officially announced their comeback with a large gig at the home of country music, Tamworth.

Bruce said he was shocked by the turnout considering their time away from the stage.

“There was around 580 people, so it had sold out nearly, there was a line getting in all the way out of the building which was amazing,” he said.

“They band was cracking; it was just like we never left.”

Now Bruce and the band are ready to get back into it, though Bruce said their schedule won’t be as jammed as it used to be before the break.

“We are going to do as much as we can, I don’t think we will go as hard and fast as we used to,” he said.

“We used to travel all over the place to these gigs, festivals, pubs and clubs.”

“We are at a point now where we are all a bit longer in the tooth and everyone is a busy doing other things as well, so we will pick and choose where we play.”

The Texas born singer is a long way from home here in Bendigo.

So, what brought him all this way? Love of course.

“I just happened to walk into Legends Corner, a bar there in Nashville to see a friend of mine perform,” he said.

“There was nobody in there, probably a handful of people, when these two girls walked in and one sat down next to me and started up a conversation, she was from Australia.”

“We got some lunch and did all the music stuff before she had to leave to go back to Australia and I thought I would never see her again but she called me when she got back home and we never stopped calling.”