Australian Rock Collective bringing Hotel California show to Brunswick Heads

AUSTRALIAN supergroup Australian Rock Collective (ARC) will bring Eagles’ legendary Hotel California album to Brunswick Heads next month, performing the band’s biggest record in full alongside a selection of Eagles’ greatest hits.

The show will take place at Hotel Brunswick on June 5 and marks the opening night of ARC’s national tour.

ARC features Kram of Spiderbait, Darren Middleton of Powderfinger, Mark Wilson of Jet and Davey Lane of You Am I, with the musicians joining forces to reinterpret some of rock music’s most celebrated albums.

Formed in 2014 after the four friends were invited to perform together at the World Cup in Brazil, ARC has since built a reputation for taking on classic records at venues around the country.

Over the years the group has tackled albums including Abbey Road, Let It Be, Harvest, Dark Side of the Moon and Led Zeppelin IV, while members have continued recording and touring with their own bands.

Wilson told this masthead last year the annual tours had become something of a tradition.

“There’s no strategy other than we just do this tour every year,” he said.

“We love it and get so much out of it.”

Wilson said the musicians approached each project with an obsessive level of detail.

“The show is like we go off on school camp three weeks a year with our friends and play an album that we’ll probably never play again,” he said.

“We’re being absolute nerds, going deep and getting forensic on everything, from the kind of guitars they used to the pedals and the same amps.

“It’s never perfect, but we try to get as close as possible, and it’s gotta sound great, of course.”

Lane’s own musical obsession started young. In a past biography, the You Am I guitarist described himself as a “nerdy kid” whose interests moved from aviation and space to music after hearing The Who for the first time.

“I was about eight or nine and I remember it like yesterday, that moment when My Generation started and I went, ‘What is this!'” Lane said.

“As soon as I saw Pete Townshend play guitar I said: ‘I want to do that.'”

Lane said Hotel California could prove one of the band’s most ambitious projects yet.

“Strap yourselves in and be our esteemed guests as we set the controls for the heart of the sunny Californian state, the spirit of ’76 and one of the greatest selling albums of all time – Eagles’ Hotel California,” he said.

“It’s incredibly precise and loose, fast and easy (seemingly) – we’re not shy of challenging ourselves and this could be the most challenging yet.

“We’ve been very lucky to grace some of the greatest Australian venues and concert halls over the last seven years we’ve annually done this and we’re limbering up for this to be the biggest tour yet.”

Between them, the four musicians have collected 33 ARIA Awards and 16 top 10 albums across their careers.

Final tickets for the Brunswick Heads show are on sale now, with organisers encouraging fans to act fast.