Back Story to the concerts in Tunnel Number Five:

It all began as a quest to find a lighthouse to do a gig in. A vertical “lightflute” as I call them. That’s right… I was not think laterally at all! But I soon found the paperwork and bureaucracy of staging public performances in lighthouses is just impossible. I was despairing about this when someone at a party in Townsville told me about the reverberant tunnels under Darwin.

“A horizontal flute!”… So, I called the WWII Oil Storage Tunnels operator, Robert Marchant, and he said he had never had a concert in the tunnels, but why not. So I called Anja Tait, the only muso I knew in Darwin, and asked her to join me; then I heard from Emily Sheppard that she would be in town performing with ACO2, so I booked a second night… so two gigs now (Emily and I met jamming in a cave in Tassie a few months earlier and agreed to record together at the first opportunity…).

Then I applied to Darwin Festival for the shows to go under their umbrella… they said “no”… but I went to Darwin anyway. I hitched a lift to Uluru, a bus to Alice and was flown by the “Walking With Spirits” festival to Darwin… long story… but the end result was two resonant concerts under Darwin in August 2015 with two wonderful audiences who brought their own seats. Whispered Shadows-Darwin 2015

And we were very privileged to have a location recordist with us. David Matthews recorded both gigs as well as several late night/ early morning sessions without an audience… and a fabulous CD is now in the offing.*

Anne Norman

3rd July 2016

PS I am currently en route from Victoria to Darwin to make preparations for this year’s 5 day Underground Music Festival. Now writing this in a fabulous Taiwanese restaurant in Alice Springs with sensational tea!  The “Tea Shrine” –  I highly recommend their High Mountain Oolong tea. I asked for a Dong Ding, which they didn’t have… this one is from a different mountain but tastes just as wonderful. If I lived in Alice Springs I’d be sipping tea here regularly.

*Available through Darwin Tours, at the door of the WWII Oil Storage Tunnels, The Boite World Music in Melbourne, or on line here: BENEATH THE SURFACE