Live at City Hall: Sunday Sounds returns to Kingston City Hall with soul, blues and Afrobeat all summer long
If Moorabbin doesn’t spring to mind when you think of Melbourne’s live music hotspots, prepare to change your mind.
Kingston Arts and community radio stalwarts PBS 106.7FM have been quietly running one of the city’s most underrated concert series, and Live at City Hall: Sunday Sounds is back for another run.
The free, family-friendly program takes over Kingston City Hall across three Sundays from February to April, bringing a rotating cast of Melbourne’s finest soul, blues and world music acts to the southern suburbs. Doors open at 1pm with the bar ready to pour, performances run from 2pm to 4:30pm, and the only thing you need to bring is a picnic platter (cold food only, they don’t have reheating facilities).
Live at City Hall: Sunday Sounds
- 22 February – Sweethearts with DJ Lady Soul, Kingston City Hall, Moorabbin, 2pm-4:30pm, free
- 22 March – Ausecuma Beats, Kingston City Hall, Moorabbin, 2pm-4:30pm, free
- 19 April – Checkerboard Lounge with Joshua Batten, Kingston City Hall, Moorabbin, 2pm-4:30pm, free
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
Sweethearts
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The series opens on 22 February with Sweethearts, a Geelong-based soul collective that’s been running since 1989. Founded at Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College, the all-female ensemble operates as a rotating program – members join as high schoolers aged 14 to 18 and graduate out when they finish Year 12, meaning the band is perpetually younger than itself. The Emmy-nominated ABC documentary series Heart & Soul followed the group through exams, assignments and globe-trotting performances.
Despite this constant turnover, Sweethearts has performed at Switzerland’s Montreux Jazz Festival, Italy’s Porretta Soul Festival and France’s Jazz à Vienne across eight international tours.
Melbourne soul DJ Lady Soul provides support.
Ausecuma Beats
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On 22 March, the nine-piece Ausecuma Beats takes over proceedings. The ensemble’s name is a portmanteau of its members’ home countries: Australia, Senegal, Cuba and Mali (with additional members from Gambia and Guinea).
Led by master djembe player Boubacar Gaye, who emigrated from Senegal to Melbourne, the group blends West African percussion with Afrobeat, jazz, funk and Cuban rhythms. Their lineup features four percussionists enhanced by kora, saxophone and guitar, creating something that sits somewhere between a cultural exchange program and a transcendent dance party.
The band has released three studio albums through Music in Exile records, including 2024’s Dakar Bamako, which saw Gaye and balafon player Bassidi Koné return to their respective home cities to record with 14 musicians across three continents. They’ve performed at Dark Mofo in Tasmania and held a long-standing residency at Brunswick’s Bar Oussou.
Supporting Ausecuma Beats will be DJ Suzie Hutchings.
Checkerboard Lounge
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The series closes on 19 April with Checkerboard Lounge, a Melbourne blues institution founded by singer-drummer Carl Pannuzzo over 35 years ago.
The band was semi-finalists at the 2020 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, where they also recorded at the legendary Sun Studio. Their 2022 album Sun Sessions won Best Blues Album at the Music Victoria Awards and spent more than a year on the Australian Blues & Roots Airplay Chart, including multiple months at the top spot. The current lineup features Pannuzzo alongside guitarist Shannon Bourne, Hammond organ player Tim Neal and bassist Zoë Frater.
Their 2023 follow-up Roller Coaster was co-produced by Jeff Lang and features what might be the first non-jazz album with four bass solos on it. Pannuzzo has also toured internationally with the a cappella trio Acapelicans and worked with everyone from Paul Grabowsky to Cirque du Soleil.
Melbourne roots rocker Joshua Batten opens the show – he reached the finals of the 2024 Melbourne Blues Challenge and has released three albums exploring neurodiversity and mental health through blues-inflected rock.
Checkerboard lounge will be supported by DJ Helen Jennings OAM.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with City of Kingston.
