Kate Ceberano’s love letter to Australian music

THE eternally effervescent high priestess of song, Kate Ceberano, will perform in Tweed on June 16, celebrating 40 years on the road with a fresh take on her life’s work.

The Australian Made Tour 2025 harks back to her first one, when at age 20, she joined the all-star 1987 version, which included INXS, Jimmy Barnes, Divinyls, and the Models.

Now, joined by two incredible young talents, the singer comes full circle in a program of hits and the songs and stories of her era.

“I have deduced the best way to stay young is to just stay around young people,” Ceberano said in a chat with this masthead.

“I’ve been working with Kathleen Heller since the pandemic, when the poor lamb was hopelessly locked in with us after just moving into our house.

“The spirit of that time, raising money for Support Act and other musical stuff, bound us together.

“And I’m working with Darren Hart (Harts), who is a genius. He was a protege of Prince for many years.

“So, it’s the three of us, and for much of the music they weren’t even born at the time, but it’s much more interesting because they bring a different, more contemporary sound, and I love it,” she said.

From early art pop to a swag of jazz, indie, rock, acoustic folk, and atmospheric pop outings, her 30th album, My Life Is A Symphony, was an orchestral milestone in a career encompassing a vast array of styles.

She is beloved by the industry and her peers, and her accomplishments are too long to list. Her 11 platinum and eight gold albums, ten Top 10 albums, 15 Top 40 singles, three Countdown awards, five ARIAs and more than 6,000 live performances barely begin to attest to her remarkable impact in the Australian industry.

To her retrospective, the artist has added music that she was listening to, and layered the show with stories of the time.

“There was a big variety of different bands, but we’d all be on the same bill, even though we were a dance funk band or singing jazz,” she said.

“People rated music as music. They didn’t think of it so much in categories or styles.

“Coming out of the 70s and into the 80s, the radio had this juxtaposition of punk and pop. You had Deborah Harry blended up with Chrissy Hynde and blended into Chrissy Amphlett.

“I’ve borrowed a bit from the cabaret template of storytelling.

“For you and I and anyone who’s had their misspent youth played out to these songs will appreciate that there’s much more behind the story.

“So, Australian Made is a true love letter to all those bands that were drinking from the same well,” she said.

“I love playing live. I feel like we harvest energy in these songs, and you give them to audiences, they give them back to me, like a universal gift we give to each other. It’s a primal thing and what I was born to do.

“Honestly, I feel like a fart in a bottle up there. It’s what I live for.”

For tickets, visit twintowns.com.au/events/kate-cebrano-australian-made-tour-2025