Avenue are a quartet made up of vocalist Joyce Mathers, Matthew Bateman Graham on Bass, Kim Anning on guitar, banjo, tin whistle and flue and Wayne Tallowin on 12 string guitar – so named because it has 12 strings as Joyce learned during the show 😊

What a lovely relaxed night of music hosted at the Ellington. It’s an intimate venue so we were up close and personal with the band and getting to know some strangers we were sharing a table with.

The show gave a potted history of the Seekers and we were treated to a range of their music (and music that was part of their journey) interspersed with their story. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know anything about the Seekers and who they were, like many I just grew up hearing their music and thought it would be a good night out. It was and I learned something.

There were some technical glitches through the night but that was ok, Joyce shared the stories while cords and leads were changed, and Wayne was happy to chip in with a joke along the way to keep it going (I’m not sure how happy Joyce was with Wayne’s jokes but it was all very good humoured between them). I think the glitches meant that they didn’t get through as many songs as they would have liked in the 50 minutes so that was ok with them, they just kept going. (To be fair, I saw the list of songs they wanted to sing and even without the glitches there is no way they could have got through them all in their slot.)

They just wanted to perform, and we wanted to let them. When Joyce announced the last song Kim and Wayne decided that there was no way they were ending without playing ‘The Carnival is Over’ and so they ignored her and played what they wanted. It was all in good spirits and Joyce and Matthew quickly joined in and what would have been their last song was then played as the Ellington tried to get us all to leave so they could reset for the next show.

All in all a good night with a very chilled out vibe. The highlight would have to be ‘I am Australian’. I’m not sure we did all sing with one voice but what a beautiful experience to have a room of strangers from literally all around the globe singing that together. Just wonderful.