Media Release

Monday 9 October 2017 MEDIA RELEASE

10TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT- Helping feed people in need Tuesday 28 November

Sacred Heart Mission has announced a dazzling line-up for the 10th anniversary of its annual fundraiser, The Heart of St Kilda Concert at the Palais Theatre St Kilda, on Tuesday 28 November. Performers will include Leo Sayer, Courtney Barnett, Jimeoin, James Reyne, Adalita, John Paul Young, Models, Tim Rogers, Claire Hooper, Dave Callan, Geraldine Hickey, Rebecca Barnard, Billy Miller & the Caravan Choir, Hailey Cramer, The Meltdown and D²Drumline.

The Heart of St Kilda concert is the annual highlight of the Melbourne live music and comedy calendar. It attracts Australia’s finest musicians and comedians who donate their time to support the work of Sacred Heart Mission and its Meals Program, which provides up to 400 hot and hearty meals daily to those in Melbourne experiencing homelessness, social isolation and disadvantage.

The Mission serves over 160,000 meals each year out of its dining hall in Grey St, St Kilda and once again proceeds from this year’s concert will continue this inspirational work.

The show will again be MC’ed by irrepressible RocKwiz co-presenter and ABC Melbourne broadcaster Brian Nankervis.

Continuing a tradition set up ten years ago by committee members Wal Bishop OAM, Larry Ponting, Neil Croker and Brian Nankervis, the Heart of St Kilda Concert is a totally unique, celebratory night of entertainment for the whole family, helping to raise funds for a vital cause.

HEART OF ST KILDA CONCERT TUESDAY 28 NOVEMBER PALAIS THEATRE, ST KILDA Ticketmaster: 136 100 or www.ticketmaster.com.au A-Reserve $99; B-Reserve $79

Media Enquiries – Cavanagh PR Julie Cavanagh 03 9836 5785 or 0419 306 540 [email protected] Larissa Anderson 0419 348 938 [email protected]

Performers at the 2017 Heart of St Kilda Concert include:

Leo Sayer is a singer-songwriter, musician and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. He launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10. The peak of his career came in 1977, when he achieved two consecutive number one hits in the United States, first with the disco styled ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ (a Grammy Award winner for the year's best Rhythm and Blues Song), followed by the romantic ballad, ‘When I Need You’, which reached number one in both the United Kingdom and United States.

Courtney Barnett Since the release of her 2015 full-length debut ‘Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit', Courtney Barnett has been celebrated as one of the most distinctive and compelling voices in indie rock, a singer - songwriter who mixes witty, often hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking observations with devastating self -assessment. Rolling Stone praised her as “one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around—at any level, in any genre… a self- strafing humourist á la Lena Dunham who’s also a Dylan-style word ninja. Barnett has won 4 ARIA Awards, Triple J's Award for Australian Album of The Year, the prestigious Australian Music Prize and APRA's Australian Songwriter of The Year. She was nominated for a Grammy and a Brit Award and also won The USA Independent Music Association's Libera Award and topped it all off with performances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, three appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and the season finale of Saturday Night Live. Barnett is the founder of Milk! Records, home to the likes of Jen Cloher, Fraser A. Gorman and Jade Imagine. In late 2017 Barnett released a collaboration album with American cult-hero Kurt Vile.

Jimeoin is acclaimed as one of the hottest standup comics of this generation - a true comedy master. A prolific writer with an exceptional audience rapport, he is known and loved for his brilliantly funny wit and charming observations on the absurdities of everyday life. His UK appearances include Sunday Night at the Palladium, Live at the Apollo, 8 out of 10 Cats, The Royal Variety Performance, Channel 4’s Comedy Gala, Dave’s One Night Stand, Edinburgh Comedy Festival and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. He has also appeared on the Conan O’Brien Show in the US and in a number of international specials for Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. This year, he appeared in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Allstar’s Gala and was recently voted one of the funniest comedians at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe.

James Reyne is an Australian rock musician and singer/songwriter both as a soloist and, until 1986, as frontman with the legendary band Australian Crawl who produced such hits as’ Beautiful People’, ‘Reckless’, ‘Boys Light Up’, ‘Errol’ and ‘Things Don’t Seem’.

Adalita is best known as front woman for much loved and respected Australian indie rock band Magic Dirt. Since 1989, she has been writing and producing records, touring the world and is an integral part of the Australian music scene. In 2011 Adalita released her debut self-titled solo album to rave reviews and completed a national tour to packed houses across Australia, including a performance for His Holiness, The Dalai Lama in June 2011 and also a national tour supporting Blondie and The Pretenders. She also won Best Independent Release at the 2011 AIR Award. In 2013, Adalita’s second solo album ‘All Day Venus’ landed her The Age/Music Victoria award for Best Female just a month after its release and an invitation to deliver the keynote speech at the 2014 AIR Awards. Adalita’s other passions include acting, film scoring, photography, public speaking. A vegan, Adalita is also an advocate for animal rights and wilderness conservation. She is currently working on her 3rd studio album.

John Paul Young is inextricably linked to ABC TV’s iconic Countdown and to his world-wide hit ‘Love is in the Air’ which was the theme song for the Australian hit movie ‘Strictly Ballroom’. He also had top ten chart success in Germany and the Netherlands with ‘Standing in the Rain’ and four other top ten hits in South Africa, including No. 1 hits with ‘I Hate the Music’ and ‘Yesterday's Hero’.

Models When they formed, Models were hailed as one of the most innovative and imaginative Australian bands. Nearly four decades later, nothing has changed. Well, that’s not quite right – a lot of things have changed, but not the band’s approach to making music. Models have always done things their own way. The songs still sound fresh. “We don’t think of them as being old,” Andrew Duffield says. “Models never go out of style”.

Tim Rogers is an ARIA award-winning, platinum and gold record music icon who shot to fame as front-man of You Am I and is a solo artist and theatrical performer. He has also recorded solo albums with backing bands. This year has seen Tim release both a new album ‘An Actor Repairs’ and publish a memoir entitled Detours, where he writes movingly and lyrically about rock n' roll, fatherhood, anxiety, being a son, AFL and more.

Claire Hooper started on the stage - crafting engaging, innovative live shows that blended stand-up, theatre and some hammer dancing. Her 2006 show, 'Oh', earned her both critical acclaim and a nomination for the Melbourne Comedy Festival's Best Newcomer award. A born storyteller with a sharp wit, Claire has gone on to regularly perform at festivals and comedy rooms all over the country – most recently with her brand new solo show Familiar. For four years Claire shared a set with Paul McDermott and Mikey Robbins on the iconic comedy show Good News Week as a team captain. She has also appeared on Rove and The Melbourne Comedy Festival's Great Debate and Opening Night Gala. In 2015 Claire scored her dream job as co-host of The Great Australian Bake Off for Foxtel’s LifeStyle Channel alongside seriously funny Mel Buttle as well as judges Maggie Beer and Matt Moran. Series three of Bake Off is set to air in 2017.

Dave Callan has popped up on Rove Live, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala, Good News Week, Spicks & Specks, Chaser's Media Circus, Triple J and can currently be seen on ABC2's Good Game. He has performed at the Edinburgh Festival and toured Britain, South East Asia, the U.S. and Hobart. Recently Dave has embraced his roots by lending his voice to the Irish animated series ‘Mollusks’ as Feargal the Irish Sea Cucumber and played the Electric Picnic, a three-day music festival in Ireland. Dave is currently performing ‘The Psychology of Laughter’, a brand-new live show about a one hundred year old book he found in Edinburgh of the same name. He has sweet guns.

Geraldine Hickey With an unselfconscious charm and a superb skill for finding the funny in true stories Geraldine Hickey has been described as a ‘deceptively cheery dame who'll quietly take out your innards.’ She is revered in the industry as a comedian’s comedian and has been shortlisted for the ‘Piece of Wood’ award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival multiple times. A veteran of many seasons of The Melbourne International Comedy Festival and a regular on the club and pub circuit around the country. Geraldine can also be heard each morning as a co-host of Breakfasters on the iconic independent Melbourne Community station Triple R.

Rebecca Barnard, Billy Miller and The Caravan Choir Billy Miller is a founding member of The Ferrets, of No 1 hit ‘Don’t Fall In Love’ fame, Billy has more-recently worked with Paul Kelly and Stephen Cummings and produces solo records and film soundtracks. Rebecca Barnard is the emotive lead singer and songwriter of Rebecca's Empire, and darling of the music scene as a solo artist and collaborator. Rebecca and Billy’s Caravan Choir have become such a fixture in the Heart of St Kilda Concert program that many of the choir members have gained the ability to exist in the fourth dimension and live most of their lives as spirits inside the Palais Theatre. Throughout the year, many theatre staff swear that they have seen ghostly figures dressed in red, white and black, rushing between the aisles and on rare occasions are actually up on stage for a few seconds, reliving their past choral performances, backing the likes of Colleen Hewitt and Tim Rogers.

Hailey Cramer has been quietly building a reputation for herself as one of the most interesting artists to emerge out of Melbourne's burgeoning electronic infused soul scene. She featured on the hit collaboration ‘The Festival Song’ with rapper Pez and has blown audiences away performing with the likes of Michael Franti, 360, Mark Levine, Paul Grabowsky and Blue King Brown. Hailey released her debut self-titled EP to much acclaim with a jam-packed room at The Toff in Town. She was invited to perform on Rockwiz and then toured around Australia performing in the ‘Rockwiz salutes Vanda and Young’ show. In what is considered to be one of the most exciting times in Australian soul, it's only a matter of time before Hailey Cramer is acknowledged in the company of the best this country has to offer.

The Meltdown, Melbourne’s purveyors of the finest country soul, have released their self-titled debut album on HopeStreet Recordings. The much-acclaimed offering has secured their place as one of the most exciting new ensembles in Australian music. Blending country, gospel and 60s soul, the result is a unique take on Australian soul music and a record full of life, energy and deeply felt storytelling. With influences ranging from Father John Misty, Tedeschi Trucks Band and Alabama Shakes built above a steady foundation of southern soul music, this collection of stellar players have created a mesh of Stax and Motown with a healthy dose of the Nashville songwriting tradition. Making the song the focus, The Meltdown stay true to the common goal of the story and keep your attention on the honey soaked tones of Simon Burke's incredible voice.

D2 Drumline are Melbourne's Premier precision-drumming ensemble. They are now one of Australia’s most highly sought- after entertainment ensembles and the only professional drumline of its kind in the country.