Classic Stones show gets 50-year tribute

IN February 1973 rock legends The Rolling Stones played across two scorching days at Kooyong Tennis Club in Melbourne.

The event went down in history, and 50 years on, a tribute act made up of a group of well-known Australian musicians will be coming to Bendigo in November to mark the half-century.

As part of the show Hunters & Collectors brass player Jack Howard will be on the horn.

“I’ve kind of had a Stones re-education over about the last 10 to 12 years,” he said.

Howard said he was rapt at the makeup of the band, which includes well known names from Australian music, including You Am I frontman Tim Rogers.

“It’s very exciting, and to be up on stage playing with a band as good as this,” he said.

“There are really amazing horn arrangements, and it gave me an opportunity to really get inside all of those songs which was a great experience.

“Davey Lane, Andre Warhurst, Steve Hadley on bass is incredible, and the Wolfgramm sisters sing as well, and they are phenomenal.

“And of course, Tim out there just being the incredibly natural and exuberant performer that he is.

“The last show we did he actually started unbuttoning my shirt as I was playing the trumpet up on stage because he was half naked of course, as he always is, so it was a real lot of fun.”

Of the setlist, Howard said it was hard to pick his favourite Stones song to perform, but that it would be All Down The Line if he had to choose.

“It is a great, fun brass tune to play, and Happy, which is one Keith Richards actually sings,” said Howard.

“The crowds love it. I guess every song is a familiar song, from Tumbling Dice to Brown Sugar to Gimme Shelter, all those big songs.

“It’s a joy to play with them.”

The connection to the Rolling Stones runs deeper than just a tribute show, with Hunters & Collectors supporting the rock legends a few years ago in Auckland, New Zealand.

“It was brilliant to see them, I didn’t see them at Kooyong,” Howard said.

“It was a real feather in our caps to have an opportunity to play with the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.”

The Rolling Stones’ 1973 Kooyong Concert 50th Anniversary Show will play at the Ulumbarra Theatre on Saturday 11 November.