“Well, we finally made it … Y’all have some really cool trees,” Gillian Welch drawls. Actually, it’s only just over a year since Welch and her musical partner David Rawlings were last in Australia, when they played sold-out residencies at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall and the Sydney Opera House. This, though, is the Empire Theatre in Toowoomba, the heart of Queensland’s Bible belt.
For this tour, Welch and Rawlings are road-tripping, taking in a few of the larger regional cities around the southern capitals. It’s not without commercial risk, because the 1,500-capacity Empire – a glorious heritage-listed art deco building dating back to 1911 – is barely half full. Maybe Toowoomba’s idea of country music hews closer to Tamworth’s.
