Review: Greg Phillips. Photos: Jason Rosewarne
As the MCG footy crowds departed the CBD and the music fans hit the Melbourne arts precinct, the city was looking particularly pretty on a crisp late May evening, ready to welcome the prodigal son Tommy Emmanuel to night one of two at Hamer Hall. Sure he was born in Muswellbrook, lived in many Australian cities and now resides in Nashville but it was in East Brighton in Melbourne where his career really began to develop.
I used to refer to Tommy Emmanuel as a national treasure (which he indisputably still is) but the extraordinary musician has become so much more. His international stature increases by the minute and he now belongs to all of the world’s music lovers. He’s a global ambassador for the joy of making music and a damn find diplomat for Australian-made guitar brand Maton too.
More than ever, this tour seems like a significant homecoming, where we get to join Tommy in celebrating his ever-growing achievements. It’s his first tour of Australia as a bonafide Grammy Award winner, having been nominated a couple of times before and just last week he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Newcastle in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to music on a global scale.
Tommy strode to the Hamer Hall stage, selected a EBG808C with cutaway from a pyramid of three Maton guitars and immediately got down to business, fingerpicking his way into our hearts with a new, unreleased song Black and White to Colour, due to appear on an upcoming album. An intriguing version of Jolly Swagman, his take on the Australian classic was all it took to tell us he was back home. It was three songs in before Tommy took to the microphone to declare that “I’m the opening act. The guy coming up next has a better shirt!”
Guitar Rag gave Tommy his first opportunity to have a sing before showcasing all of his famous fretboard tricks from percussive beats on various parts of the guitar to imitating a whole band on his own, playing rhythm and lead parts at the same time, and later complimenting his invisible band members “Sounding good guys!”
A beautiful Ruby’s Eyes from his 2011 album Little by Little followed, a first for this tour. In introducing Endless Road, he told us the tune was written during a dark period in his life when he was going through a divorce and it’s about the lessons he learned from nature and life itself. While there are no lyrics, the gorgeous, heartfelt melody tells a story far greater than any words could do.
Tommy turns 70 on Saturday while playing Adelaide. He joked that Perth will get the young guy on Thursday and Adelaide will get the older guy, which then led into a mesmerising version of Secret Love, a song he recorded with the great Martin Taylor. The song not only showcased Tommy’s immaculate fingerpicking but also some sublime harmonics.
Tommy then picked up another guitar, telling us that it’s brand new and has only been played on a few shows. It’s a guitar created for Tommy in celebration of his 70th birthday by Maton. It will most likely become guitar #5 in their Master Built series. I say most likely as Tommy is being presented with two more prototypes today, so one of the three will join the series and be available to the public soon after. It may possibly be titled the TE70 but we will need to wait and see. As he strapped on the guitar, he told the guitarists in the audience he’ll be playing in G6 tuning and to pay attention as he’ll be asking question later! With that lasting dad joke, he launched into the delightful Gdansk/Tall Fiddler, the latter part of the medley featuring some frantic fingerpicking, while the new guitar delivered some deep, rich tones.
The guitar great then placed his instrument back in the rack and recited Today is Mine, an inspiring a cappella tune about gratitude, seizing the day and making it your own from his Endless Road album. It was a fitting way to complete the first set.
The second set began with a few alluring ballads including Morning Aire, the magnificent Angelina, written for his second daughter and a glorious rendition of Blood Brother. Tommy then told us he was once asked to write a theme for a movie and that his brief was that the music had to be dark and menacing but somewhere in there it needed to contain a glimmer of hope. Before playing the piece called Timberland, he told us he will look out at us when the hope bit arrives… which he did, generating many chuckles in the crowd. He really is a very funny guy. The piece itself however was quite hypnotic.
Time for some boogie woogie and some frenetic rock ’n’ roll runs up and down the fretboard, displaying tremendous speed, touch, feel and total control of his instrument. Elevating the energy even more, Tommy then grabbed some percussion brushes and proceeded to tap out beats on the microphone stand and every inch of the guitar, utilising reverb and dramatic lighting to to great effect. The familiar strains of Mombassa followed to the crowd’s great pleasure, then he continued back on his percussive train of thought, dazzling us even more with his imaginative moves. How that guitar stays intact and in tune afterwards is a marvel of modern science.
Tommy then took to the microphone again to express his gratitude for our attendance and declared his deep affection for the city of Melbourne, suggesting he’d love to spend more time here as a tourist and catching up with friends but his career keeps getting better and consequently busier. The audience enthusiastically showed their appreciation for the thought.
A fantastic medley of tunes, beginning with Oasis’ Wonderwall began a journey through the history of The Beatles which included I Feel Fine, Please Please Me, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Daytripper, Lady Madonna, ending in a snippet of Tommy’s signature tune Classical Gas.
In one of the most poignant moments of the show, Tommy told us about a song he had written for his fellow Australian brothers and sisters and in particular the first nations people. He’d retired the song a couple of decades ago but upon returning to Australia thought he’d dig it out in celebration of first nations culture. The song was inspired by the time he was living in Alice Springs as a kid. He and his brother Phil would leap the back fence heading out over the Todd River toward the MacDonnell Ranges. As the mountain range came into view Phil stopped and said it’s that Albert Namatjira painting. Namatjira was famous for painting that area. One day while the brothers were out exploring they came across a man also painting the landscape and his name was Henoch Raberaba.
Tommy told us that years later they were living in Parkes, NSW and his mother had taken him to a doctor to treat an ear infection. While there, two serendipitous things occurred. One was that the doctor turned out to be the same doctor who had delivered him in Muswellbrook. The other incredible twist of fate was that upon entering the doctor’s room, Tommy spotted a painting behind the doctor of a landscape of the MacDonnell Ranges and the signature at the bottom of the painting was Henoch Raberaba. “White men call that a coincidence,” Tommy said. “I don’t, it was there for a reason.”
With that, he introduced the song as “things he learned from his time in the outback” and then launched into a powerful version of Initiation, conjuring a dramatic, spacious atmosphere of the outback with just a guitar. Again the mood lighting (produced by Chicago-based lighting designer Zack Corp) added an extra dimension of mystique to the stunning piece. With Tommy Emmanuel there are no boundaries to the sounds you can create from six strings and a piece of wood. Not only is he a master guitarist, he’s also a creative genius and knows a thing or two about show dynamics. To end the evening, Tommy returned to the basics, using simple, gorgeous fingerpicking on the delicate ballad Stay Close To Me. As I said earlier, our national treasure is no longer just ours, he’s a world leader in not only guitar artistry but in the creation and sharing of sheer joy.
AN EVENING WITH TOMMY EMMANUEL AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2025 REMAINING DATES
Monday 26 May
MELBOURNE VIC | Hamer Hall
Thursday 29 May
PERTH WA | Riverside Theatre, PCEC
Saturday 31 May
ADELAIDE SA | Her Majesty’s Theatre
Live at the Sydney Opera House Released via CGP Sounds – available here.
