Cold Chisel Concerts in Hunter Valley

Cold Chisel will reform for a massive "Light the Nitro Tour" of Australia and New Zealand later this year, with two shows in the Hunter Valley. The Tour will kick off in October with a show in Newcastle, and a later one will be at a winery in the Hunter Valley. The tour will end in the first weekend in December. This is their biggest tour in nearly 30 years, and will; be The tour will be presented by Triple M and Southern Cross Media, MAX and CMC.

There will be 24 concerts unveiled around Australia plus two New Zealand shows.. In addition to all capital cities, the concerts will be staged at regional centres including Mudgee, Wodonga, Tamworth and the Hunter and Yarra Valleys. Cold Chisel will wrap up the Australian leg of their tour in Adelaide, the town where they first formed. Then they'll cross the Tasman to New Zealand for shows in Wellington and Auckland.

Shows will be staged under huge specially constructed all-weather Big Top Tents in many towns. There will also be seated arena shows, amphitheatre dates, and for the first time ever the band will play at a handful of very special winery concerts. The tour will include three huge “A Day on the Green” events including Bimbadgen Winery in the Hunter Valley on Saturday November 12

The opening Light the Nitro Tour Newcastle concert will be held on Thursday 13 October 2011 at the Newcastle Panthers Club, NSW, Australia. Tickets will be available from www.moshtix.com.au or 1300 438 849.  Cold Chisel will be supported by Even. This will be a Licensed Show, so admission limited to patrons 18 years and over.

The Cold Chisel “A Day on the Green” concert will be held on Saturday 12 November 2011 at the Bimbadgen Winery in the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia. The gates will open at 4.00pm, Stonefield will be on stage at 4.45pm, Dan Sultan at 6pm and Cold Chisel at 7.30pm  A General Admission ticket will cost $120, a Silver Reserved Seat $140, A Gold Reserved Seat $180, and Concert and Dining packages $375. Tickets will be available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or phone 136 100 The “A Day on the Green” concert is a fully licensed event. Persons under 18 years old must be accompanied by a ticket holding parent or legal guardian at all times There is strictly no BYO alcohol. Food will be available for purchase on site or BYO picnic. Picnic rugs & deck chairs are recommended. For coach enquiries, call Rover Coaches (02) 4990 1699. For accommodation enquiries, call Hunter Valley Wine Country (02) 4990 0900

Every ticket for every concert will cost only $99.90 (except for the winery concerts)

Tickets for all concerts will go on sale everywhere at 9.00am on Thursday, 4 August. However, anybody who signs up to the band's mailing list at www.coldchisel.com before August 1 will actually be able to buy tickets from 9.00am on Tuesday, 2 August as part of a special presale.

Jimmy Barnes

Jimmy Barnes, lead singer said "We can't wait to get back on the road together", "Every day for years I've had at least one person come up and ask me when Cold Chisel are going to do a proper tour. I'm glad to finally have something good to tell 'em!"

The tour was announced recently at exactly the same time as all of the band's recordings were being released digitally for the first time in a major online launch. Included are 56 rare and previously unreleased tracks. Music shops received the newly remastered and repackaged CD versions of all the classic Cold Chisel albums. Each of their studio albums now comes with a bonus DVD containing rare and unreleased footage from that era. This massive catalogue rollout has already been hailed as the most extensive archival project in the history of Australian rock.

Jimmy Barnes revealed that the original plans for this tour were actually hatched in secret nearly two years ago around the group's memorable one-off show to over 50,000 people at Sydney's Olympic Stadium.

Cold Chisel

"We got such a buzz from that gig that it made all of us really want to get our act together", he said. "We wanted to do things properly though because we know this band means a lot to a lot of people - especially us! So we had to do it right. That meant taking time to find lots of cool unreleased stuff and getting the albums looking and sounding great. It also meant making all the music available everywhere that people might want to get it these days. We agreed that once that was sorted we'd go out and play all those songs right around Australia and New Zealand in a way that we haven't really done since the early 80s."

These plans took the better part of two painstaking years to pull together including lengthy archival excavation and remastering activities. However, in January this year everything was suddenly put on hold with the tragic death of the group's drummer, Steve Prestwich.

Keyboardist Don Walker explains that for two months nobody in the band discussed whether to continue what they'd been planning together. "When the four of us finally sat down to talk about it we realised we all felt the same way. Steve was really keen on seeing all these things happen. We all felt it would have been wrong to just walk away from the plans we'd started together."

In some ways Steve Prestwich's death therefore ultimately strengthened the band's desire to present Cold Chisel's music to a 21st century audience in the best way possible. "At one point we actually thought about calling the tour 'Unfinished Business'," said bassist Phil Small. "After that 2009 gig we'd all quietly decided to try to do something big. To have bailed out just a few months from actually doing it would actually have felt like we were letting Steve down."

Ian Moss, guitarist, explaind, "It was all another reminder that life is short and you never know what's around the corner. We miss our brother Steve every single day but the four of us still love playing music together. And we know that people want to hear these songs, so we want to do more of that while we still can. The tour is going to be a celebration of what he helped us create."

Renowned drummer Charley Drayton (Keith Richards, B52's, Divinyls) will be behind the drum kit for the Light The Nitro Tour and one fifth of tour profits will go to Steve Prestwich's children.

The tour name refers to the practice of injecting nitrous oxide into the carburettor during a street race, which instantly doubles or triples the horsepower of a conventional engine. Incredible power, explosively unpredictable ... obviously apt for this incendiary live band. Hardcore fans may be interested to know that "light the nitro" is also a line from one of the songs the band recorded over recent months ... a new Don Walker rocker called HQ454 Monroe about a man and his beloved hotrod.

The basic facts of Cold Chisel's career need no retelling. Since their initial heyday in the late 70s and early 80s their music has been embraced by subsequent generations as shown recently by the appearance of two of their albums in a new Triple J listener poll of Australia's 100 greatest albums of all time. 

The songs of Don Walker, Phil Small, Steve Prestwich, Ian Moss and Jimmy Barnes are now utterly engrained in the fabric of Australasian life. Khe Sanh, Flame Trees, Bow River, My Baby, You Got Nothing I Want, Last Wave Of Summer, Forever Now, Cheap Wine, Choir Girl, Standing On The Outside, Rising Sun, Saturday Night ... and many more are known by Aussies of all ages..

For further information about the “Light the Nitro Tour”, go to www.coldchisel.com and www.facebook.com/coldchisel

The National dates are as follows

Thursday, 13 October, Newcastle Panthers
Tickets available from www.moshtix.com.au or 1300 438 849
Supported by Even. Licensed Show. Admission limited to patrons 18 years and over

Wednesday, 19 October, Townsville Entertainment Centre
Tickets available from TEC Box office and www.tecc.net.au or 07 4771 4000
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Friday, 21 October, Cairns Showgrounds
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Sunday, 23 October, Botanic Gardens Amphitheatre, Darwin
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Wednesday, 26 October, Mackay Showgrounds
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Thursday, 27 October, Rockhampton Showgrounds
Tickets available from www.seeitlive.com.au or 07 4927 4111
Supported by You Am I
Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Saturday, 29 October, Stockland Park, Sunshine Coast
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by Grinspoon. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Sunday, 30 October, Gold Coast Convention Centre
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I
Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Tuesday, 1 November, Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Friday, 4 November, Stadium Drive Hockey Fields, Coffs Harbour
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Saturday, 5 November, A DAY ON THE GREEN, Robert Oatley Vineyards, Mudgee
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Supported by You Am I and Stonefield
Licensed All Ages Show: Persons under 18 years old must be accompanied by a ticket holding parent or legal guardian at all times

Monday, 7 November, Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre
Tickets available from Tourism Tamworth / www.visittamworth.com.au or 02 6767 5300
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Thursday, 10 November, Acer Arena, Sydney
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I
Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Saturday, 12 November, A DAY ON THE GREEN, Bimbadgen Winery, Hunter Valley
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Supported by Dan Sultan and Stonefield. Licensed All Ages Show: Persons under 18 years old must be accompanied by a ticket holding parent or legal guardian at all times

Sunday, 13 November, WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Tuesday, 15 November, Sydney Entertainment Centre
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Thursday, 17 November, AIS Arena, Canberra
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Friday, 18 November, Gateway Lakes, Wodonga
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show: Persons under 18 years old must be accompanied by a ticket holding parent or legal guardian at all times

Saturday, 19 November, A DAY ON THE GREEN, Rochford Wines, Yarra Valley
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Supported by You Am I and Stonefield. Licensed All Ages Show: Persons under 18 years old must be accompanied by a ticket holding parent or legal guardian at all times

Tuesday, 22 November, Derwent Entertainment Centre, Hobart
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Thursday, 24 November, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Saturday, 26 November, Sandalford Estate, Margaret River
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Special guests to be announced. Licensed All Ages Show: Persons under 18 years old must be accompanied by a ticket holding parent or legal guardian at all times

Sunday, 27 November, Belvoir Amphitheatre, Perth
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100
Special guests to be announced
Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Tuesday, 29 November, Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Tickets available from www.ticketek.com.au or 132 849
Supported by You Am I. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Friday, 2 December, TSB Arena, Wellington
Tickets available from www.ticketek.co.nz or 0800 842 538
Special guests to be announced. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under

Saturday, 3 December, Vector Arena, Auckland
Tickets available from www.ticketmaster.co.nz or 0800 111 999
Special guests to be announced. Licensed All Ages Show. Parental discretion and accompaniment is strongly advised for children 15 years and under