By Tyler Wright
ARIA chart featured artist Boo Seeka, AKA Ben Gumbleton, is bringing his national tour for new album Midnight Highlight to Belgrave next month.
On Sunday 4 March, Boo Seeka will perform at Sooki Lounge – now for the fifth time – as part of the tour, following the release of single Come With Me in December last year.
“It’s been amazing,” Gumbleton said of the reception to the album, which was released on 18 January.
“Someone said to me a while ago when I was going through that first little week out of when we had Kingdom Leader and Deception Bay and full of our first three songs that were put out, and I was stressing about doing the first album, like ‘what’s everyone going to think? Is everyone going to like it?’…and then someone said to me ‘it’s something that you’ve created and you’ve got to love, and then after that, once you put it out in the world, it’s none of your business anymore; people are going to love it, people are going to hate it, but that’s just how it is.’
“I’ve really taken that in with this whole record, and the good thing is everyone seems to love it… a lot of people are saying that it’s a really good mixture of the first album and the second album; I feel like there’s a really good middle ground of the two, which is great for this third album.”
Gumbleton recently arrived home to Australia after touring Europe and the UK supporting another home-grown outift, indie folk band Boy & Bear.
“That was incredible, sold out tour over there with them and those guys have become like family to us now; just super inspiring,” Gumbleton said.
“I listened to their records even before I met them; incredible songwriters, incredible people and just an honour to be on the road with them.
“We’re definitely on a high from that tour coming back to our Australian album tour.”
Following the news that popular regional music festival had been cancelled due to insufficient ticket sales, Gumbleton said people should “support live music”.
“[Groovin the Moo] is the best regional touring festival going around,” he said.
“We all know how hard it is just financially at the moment, cost of living is very high; if you love live music, I know a lot of bands ourselves included doing everything we can to make a ticket price very affordable.
“We’re not asking for much, literally enough to be basically covering our costs and enough for us to feed ourselves at the end of it, so we’re doing everything we can on our end, and if people can spare that extra $35 to go and see, again, if it’s not us, go and spend it on somebody else and keep this industry alive.”
For those attending the Boo Seeka gig at Sooki Lounge, Gumbleton said he wants concert goers to “forget all their worries in the world” for an hour and 10 minutes.
“And enjoy themselves and dance and sing and have a good time and be in a room with people that enjoy everything that we love doing.
“For the people that haven’t seen us before, get ready to see a long lanky man dancing around for an hour and 10 to the point of passing out.”
For tickets to the upcoming concern, visit Oztix.
