Cornwall's favourite buoy band is finally making landfall in Australia, and yes, that spelling is intentional.
The Fisherman’s Friends have achieved something remarkable in modern music: making centuries-old sea shanties commercially successful without compromising their authenticity. This group of actual fishermen and lifelong friends from the picturesque Cornish fishing village of Port Isaac have been singing together for over three decades, starting in a living room in 1990 before graduating to the harbour where they’d raise money for charity. Their story reads like fiction, but two successful feature films grossing over $15 million at the UK box office prove truth really is stranger than fiction.
Their journey from the Platt in Port Isaac to international stages represents one of music’s most unlikely success stories. In 2010, they became the first traditional folk act to land a UK top 10 album when Port Isaac’s Fisherman’s Friends went Gold. Since then, they’ve performed for royalty at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Prince Charles and Camilla’s 2016 Cornwall tour, and even found themselves on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. With over 100,000 Facebook followers and 10 album releases, they’ve managed all this while maintaining their day jobs in fishing, building, shopkeeping and filmmaking.
Fisherman’s Friends
- Thursday 8 January 2026
- Brunswick Ballroom, 314 Sydney Road, Brunswick
- Tickets available through Moshtix
Check out our gig guide here.
This Australian tour marks a significant milestone as the group makes their first ever journey Down Under. The tour includes stops in Adelaide, Geelong, St Kilda’s Palais Theatre, Frankston, Hobart, Canberra, Blue Mountains, Sydney, Newcastle, Gold Coast, Caloundra, Brisbane and Perth. For the Brunswick Ballroom show, audiences can expect a vast repertoire of over 200 sea shanties, folk songs and maritime work songs, delivered with the rich harmonies that come from three decades of friendship and shared experience.
The group performs with talented musicians Marcus Bonfanti and Simon Johnson, who add instrumentation to the traditional vocal arrangements. Their ability to transform working songs into entertainment while maintaining their authentic maritime roots has earned them a BBC Folk Award and created a global phenomenon around traditional Cornish singing practices.
For more information, head here.
