Visiting US singer-songwriter Kurt Vile and Australian troubadour Courtney Barnett have been mates for a while — they even played together back in 2014 during one of Vile's repeat visits Down Under — and they've been rekindling the friendship on a few fronts during the man's current Aussie sojourn.
Vile's been in the country playing a series of headline shows and this weekend's Golden Plains festival, and although — as Tone Deaf has noted — the pair look as though they have put in some work towards a collaborative release at Melbourne's Newmarket Studios (hinted at by an Instagram post featuring the pair with engineer Callum Barter), it would seem that's not all they've been up to of late.
A deeper dive into the photo-and-video-sharing platform reveals that Barnett has quietly joined Vile at a couple of shows over the past couple of weeks, namely at his show at Meeniyan Town Hall on 5 March as well as at Northcote Social Club last Friday, just ahead of his festival commitment.
As per triple j, the Instagram accounts for Vile and Milk! Records, Barnett's label, showed the pair getting chummy backstage in Meeniyan, but that wasn't where the jams ended: the lauded Aussie hitmaker actually joined the affable American on-stage. Luckily for those of us not in Meeniyan, a snippet of the performance was captured for posterity by fan Katie Besgrove.
Then, at Northcote Social Club, they repeated the trick, with variably blurry footage emerging of that showing by fan Thomas O'Hehir and online store Somebuddy Loves You, as well as a casual snap from punter Rohan Butler.
Well, then. All hail the new "Kurt and Courtney". Big things clearly await.
13.04.17
Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Tyagarah
20.04.17
Festival Hall, West Melbourne
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