Golden Guitar winner Angus Gill to launch national tour at Star Hotel Yackandandah

The son of a real estate agent and a signwriter based on the Mid North Coast, Gill said music had skipped a generation in his family.

"My 103-year-old grandfather played the mandolin," he said.

"I was close to him as a teenager; he gave me his 90-year-old mandolin but he's been gone a few years now.

"I was hopeless at sport and good at academics; my parents were always encouraging me to try new things.

"They dragged me along to a guitar lesson and I enjoyed it!"

Bagging his first Golden Guitar Award last year, Gill, 25, is renowned for his live wire stage persona, electrifying showmanship, multi-instrumental ability and wacky western costumes.

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Gill has once again teamed up with the members of Paul Kelly's touring band for a second album project, as Angus Gill & Seasons of Change.

The ear catching first single Departure & Arrival is powered by the farfisa organ and a driving rhythm section, providing a sublime backing for Gill's finely crafted lyric.

It contains some witty, thoughtful social commentary and reflects the universal state we are living in.

Gill wrote Departure & Arrival over the course of nearly three years.

"I started working on it in 2020 and was refining it up until the moment we stepped into the studio in December 2022," Gill said.

"The song started off with a different working title and at the time I was re-reading Alain De Botton's The Art of Travel and then it hit me.

"We are all living in a transitory state, we are all trying to push through the monotony to get to the next exciting stage of our lives; we are all somewhere between departure and arrival.

"I was re-reading The Art of Travel at a time when travel was totally off the cards - I read it the first time for my advanced English class for HSC - and during the pandemic I became an avid reader and vinyl collector."

With eight No.1 songs on the Australian country music radio charts, Gill became one of the youngest Australian artists to perform on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, in late 2019.

Now Gill will launch his new national tour at Yackandandah this week.

He will kick off his 23-date Departure & Arrival tour, with special guest Australian fiddle player Pixie Jenkins, at Star Hotel Yackandandah on Thursday at 7.30pm.

"I can't wait to hit the road and do a tic tac toe, three in a row, full bore, full throttle, full tilt tour again!" he said.

"It's a high energy show with plenty of laughs, almighty fiddle playing, some tender and poignant moments."

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