In November 1992, Luka Bloom embarked upon his first tour of Australia. This trek was built off the back of a gently blossoming career and two recent releases, Riverside in 1990 and The Acoustic Motorbike in 1992. Born on 23 May 1955 in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, after a musical career under his name Kevin Barry Moore (including three albums, a move to the Netherlands in 1980, and a son) in 1987, he moved to the US. His early ‘90s albums reflect both countries and their people. They also introspectively explore the changes in Bloom, which included his name.
His first gig at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney was fully booked. Bloom had never had a capacity audience before. Before social media, we’d found him. His love affair with our nation had begun.
2024 sees Bloom’s 15th visit to our shore and his most extensive tour to date. The near three-month extravaganza will take him from Albany, WA, to Cairns in Far North Queensland, including many other venues he’s never visited.
His last time in Canberra was almost five years to the day before his upcoming event at The Street Theatre on Friday, 8 March 2024. He spoke fondly of previous gigs at places like Tilleys and watching with horror as we went from Black Summer Bushfires into COVID.
“You got the greatest double whammy and I was conscious of that,” Bloom says, reflecting on that dark chapter. “I feel a connection to this country unlike any other place and felt so aware of what you were going through.”
Subsequently, Bloom wrote Who Will Heal the Land about the fires and impact on the environment for Bittersweet Crimson, one of the four albums he has released since that last visit and recorded in the tiny window early in 2020 before lockdowns. He never got to tour it.
He followed with Out of the Blue in 2021, a purely instrumental album featuring I Hear You, a song he would play over the phone to a beloved friend dying of COVID-related symptoms in a hospital Bloom was unable to visit.
“To me, with what I call the ‘long pause’, which is what COVID was, I couldn’t find the words,” Bloom recalls. “The only thing I felt like I could do was reengage with that 14-year-old boy, at home, with just a guitar.
“A time before gigs and promoters. Just me. The result was that album.”
That same young boy wrote a song called Wave Up To The Shore in 1972. It is the 50-year milestone that Luka Bloom comes to celebrate this tour (with a triple CD of the same name), featuring the vast array of his original music and lyrics, which I shall put into the genre of “observational story-singing” rather than just “folk”, where he is usually neatly tucked away.
There will also be the eclectic cover versions Luka collects in his spare time.
He stumbled across Hunters and Collectors‘ Throw Your Arms Around Me many years ago and decided to play it for a Perth show. He was soon astonished when the audience sang along, having no idea it was an Australian standard.
He is learning Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan numbers at present.
“I like the challenge of reinterpreting unexpected songs that connect with me and walking in another writer’s shoes for a while,” he says.
Bloom’s great gift as a songwriter and storyteller is to make people feel seen and heard on the big (climate change) and the small (riding a bike – one of his favourite pastimes).
He thinks of that skill as an Irish thing.
“There’s a young man that I chat to in my village,” he says, the storytelling instinct kicking in once more. “The other day, I told him to start writing his thoughts down; they were beautifully and uniquely articulated.”
And so 50 Songs in 50 Years will arrive without expectations or even a set list.
“I’m aware I’m getting closer to my last visit now, and so I’ve decided that all I’m bringing to Australia, and this tour, is my gratitude.
“I’ve asked for no opening acts so I can come on stage, say hello, sing a song and tell a story. I’ll sing whatever comes. That’s just my way of saying thank you.”
I affirm that we, too, will come and book out The Street and the many other familiar and unfamiliar Australian venues for the exact same reasons:
To say thank you for the many ways in which Luka Bloom understands us through his music, both with and without lyrics.
Luka Bloom’s 50 Songs in 50 Years happens at The Street Theatre on Friday, 8 March. Tickets are $68.50bf via the venue. The show is now SOLD OUT!
Listen to Luka Bloom on Spotify and Apple Music.