Loudon Wainwright III will return to Australia and New Zealand for the first time in almost 20 years, bringing more than five decades of songs, stories and sharply observed humour back to local stages.
Few songwriters have spent as long turning the private mechanics of family, ageing, regret and embarrassment into material quite as candidly as Wainwright. Since emerging in the late 1960s, the American folk musician has built a catalogue that moves freely between comedy and confession, often allowing both to occupy the same verse.
His unlikely commercial breakthrough arrived with 1972’s ‘Dead Skunk’, a Top 20 hit released during his time with Columbia Records. Yet the novelty of that song only captures one corner of a body of work that includes ‘The Swimming Song’, ‘Motel Blues’, ‘Daughter’, ‘Down Drinking at the Bar’ and ‘Lullaby’.
Across more than 30 albums and live releases, Wainwright has remained committed to autobiographical songwriting, even when the results have been uncomfortable. Relationships, parenthood and his own contradictions have repeatedly found their way into his music, giving his catalogue the feeling of an ongoing personal record rather than a carefully managed public image.
That openness has also shaped his wider influence. His songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, Mose Allison and his son Rufus Wainwright, while his children Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche have also established careers of their own. In 2009, Wainwright received a Grammy Award for High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project.
His work has extended beyond music into film and television, including appearances in M*A*S*H and projects connected with filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh and Judd Apatow. In 2007, he collaborated with Joe Henry on music for Apatow’s Knocked Up.
Onstage, Wainwright’s songs are often broken up by stories, asides and self-deprecating observations. The format sits somewhere between folk concert, memoir and stand-up performance, with the humour rarely used to disguise the emotional weight underneath.
Nearly 60 years into his career, Wainwright continues to treat songwriting as a way of examining life while it is still happening. His long-awaited return gives Australian and New Zealand audiences another chance to hear one of contemporary folk music’s most candid storytellers in the setting that suits him best: alone with a guitar, a microphone and several decades of material to unravel.
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III Australian and New Zealand Tour Dates
Tuesday 2nd February AUCKLAND, Hollywood Avondale
Thursday 4th February WELLINGTON, James Hay Theatre
Saturday 6th February SYDNEY, Enmore Theatre
Tuesday 9th February ADELAIDE, The Gov
Thursday 11th February BRISBANE, The Tivoli
Sunday 14th February MELBOURNE, Recital Centre
Wednesday 17th February PERTH, Astor Theatre
Presale: Wednesday 22nd July 11:00AM local
General Public on sale: Friday 24th July 11:00AM local
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