The Big Five-0 tour will see the band celebrate their golden anniversary in style, kicking off in Armadale (a place the band once called home).
Cold Chisel revealed that they will celebrate 50 years as a band with the The Big Five-0 tour, playing their own headline shows and leading the Red Hot Summer Tour in Armadale and Ballarat.
With singer Jimmy Barnes having a near-death experience in December of 2023, undergoing emergency open-heart surgery, the celebration could not be any better timed.
Cold Chisel 50th anniversary tour
- Saturday, 5 October 2024 – Petersons Winery, Mount View, Armidale NSW | Presented by Red Hot Summer Tour
- Tuesday, 8 October 2024 – Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, Broadbeach QLD
- Friday, 11 October 2024 – The Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park NSW
- Tuesday, 15 October 2024 – WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong NSW
- Saturday, 19 October 2024 – Sandalford Wines, Caversham WA | Presented by Red Hot Summer Tour
- Friday, 25 October 2024 – Flemington Racecourse, Flemington VIC
- Saturday, 2 November 2024 – Victoria Park, Herston / Brisbane QLD
- Wednesday, 6 November 2024 – Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Broadmeadow NSW
- Saturday, 9 November 2024 – Victoria Park, Ballarat VIC | Presented by Red Hot Summer Tour
- Wednesday, 13 November 2024 – MyState Bank Arena, Glenorchy TAS
- Sunday, 17 November 2024 – VAILO Adelaide 500, Post Race Concert, Adelaide SA
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Cold Chisel are a pillar of the Australian music scene, receiving recognition in the form of the ARIA Hall of Fame, APRA’s Ted Albert Award, an Adelaide street named in their honour, and even their own postage stamp, and for good reason. The band have provided anthem after anthem to our ears, cutting their teeth in local pubs to serenading and rocking crowds at stadium level. Their greatest hits list includes Khe Sanh, Bow River, Flame Trees, You Got Nothin’ I Want, When the War Is Over, My Baby, Cheap Wine, All for You, Choir Girl, Last Wave of Summer, Saturday Night, Breakfast at Sweethearts, Forever Now and so many more.
Across 50 years, the band have served as an unreachable force in the Australian music landscape, still active after all this time. The shows will see them kick off on Saturday, 5 October in Armidale, where Cold Chisel based themselves back in 1974-1975 while Don Walker completed his university studies, lapping around major Australian cities for 7 weeks before culminating on Sunday, 17 November in the city where the band formed in Adelaide.
In Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne, the shows will be staged under a specially constructed, 10,000 capacity Big Top tent featuring floor and bleacher seating plus a GA standing area across the rear half of the venue. The dates will be a nod to the band’s legendary An Evening with the Circus Animals shows in 1982 which closed with Jimmy Barnes singing Goodbye (Astrid, Goodbye) while riding pillion on a motorbike flying up a trapeze wire (you had to see it to believe it).
The Cruel Sea and Karen Lee Andrews will be joining them for the majority of the dates, but they will also be leading a rock lineup of legends for outdoor Red Hot Summer Tour shows with further support from The Superjesus and Birds of Tokyo. For the tour’s grand finale, they will headline the post-race concert after the VAILO Adelaide 500 Supercars event.
In addition to the shows, Cold Chisel will release 50 Years – The Best Of. The album will land on Friday, 23 August, just in time for Father’s Day, and is a 25-song, double-vinyl set that comes in a number of special vinyl formats and a double-CD set – and includes all of their classic songs. Pre-order the album from here from 7.00am today.
General public tickets go on sale at 12.00pm (local times) on Tuesday, 4 June (excl Adelaide) from coldchisel.com/tour.
