SOMETHING For Kate frontman Paul Dempsey will perform the most intimate Newcastle gig of his career next month when he appears at the New Annual festival.
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The 10-day New Annual begins on February 12 and will feature everything from live music, contemporary dance, film, 3D artwork, a celebration of Indigenous culture and even an discussion with Australia's only female prime minister, Julia Gillard, about women and leadership.
Dempsey's performance at the Newcastle Art Gallery on Sunday, February 14, is expected to be one of the highlights of the festival program.
The show will close We Can Be Heroes: a backstage pass, an exhibition of music photography spanning five decades, which has been on display at the Laman Street gallery since November. Dempsey is among the subjects featured in the exhibition.
"The way we've been programming the festival from the start is maybe a little bit different to your standard gig or play," New Annual project manager Kate Britton said.
"We thought how can we do something new? The We Can Be Heroes show that's at the gallery at the moment was a pretty good place to start in terms of thinking about music programming."
Due to COVID-19 restrictions only 80 tickets are available for the show, which will be staged among the photo exhibition.
It's expected to provide fans with a uniquely intimate experience to appreciate Dempsey's cerebral and emotional Something For Kate and solo classics such as Monsters, Whatever You Want and Ramona Was A Waitress.
"We thought wouldn't it be amazing to look at who's in these images and kind of build it out of that," Britton said.
"We had this vision that it's about story-telling and he as a lyricist is so focused around story-telling.
"He was really excited about performing in a really unusual venue for music and that really intimate experience the audience will be able to have at that gig."
Something For Kate released their first album in eight years in November, The Modern Medieval, and are among the most critically-acclaimed Australian rock bands of the past 25 years.
Newcastle songwriter Amy Vee will headline the Hazy Cosmic Jive artist showcase on Friday, February 12 at The Lock-Up, with a host of other local performers.
Another highlight will be Nourishing Waters, presented by Wylaa Buuranliyn and Veara at the Newcastle Museum from February 12 to 21. It will incorporate music, animation, storytelling and existing Indigenous cultural items in the museum.
Tickets are on sale from Tuesday through www.newannual.com.
