Regional tour a nostalgic one for band

A love for open roads has brought one of Australia’s most loved folk-rock bands back to regional WA.

The Waifs will be touring the regions from May 29 to June 15, with stops including Albany, Kalgoorlie, Geraldton, Exmouth, Port Hedland, Karratha and Broome.

The tour is set to hark back to the band’s early days of journeying across the country in a van and looks back on their 27-year history with their loyal fans.

Acoustic guitarist and vocalist Vikki Thorn said the tour will be a bit of a nostalgia trip for the band.

“Driving up the WA coast will certainly bring back a lot of memories for us,” she said.

“We just love this State — it’s a heck of a road trip and the scenery is absolutely beautiful.

“I also like to connect with the State I was born in as well as the people in it.

“There’s a certain breed of people in rural WA that I can definitely relate to — a toughness and having a heart of gold.

“Driving along regional roads is certainly different to flying in and out of airports on a day-to-day basis.”

Ms Thorn said people can expect to see fun and intimate shows with a hint of spontaneity, throughout the tour.

“A lot of bands tend to put together a set, rehearse it and just perform it again and again but with us, it’s never two of the same shows,” she said.

“We will be writing out our sets within hours of going on stage depending on how we’re feeling and to try and play to what we think the crowd would want to see, and what stories we tell.

“We just love what we do and being able to play music and please our audience.”

The tour will also give The Waifs the chance to visit the towns they’ve been longing to visit since their 25th anniversary celebrations in 2017.

Fellow guitarist and vocalist Josh Cunningham said the tour will be tipping the band’s hat to their 25th anniversary that has become the band’s 27-year history.

“In 2017, we weren’t able to get to everywhere we wanted, so it’s nice to get back to some of those places that we haven’t been,” he said. “There’s a lot of history, lots of stories and lots of connections to these places so it feels like the right thing to honour that by getting back there.”

The regional tour will begin in the band’s hometown of Albany on May 29 where Ms Thorn, Donna Simpson and Josh Cunningham will perform an intimate acoustic show, before the rest of the band joins them for the remainder of the tour.

They will perform at the Esperance Civic Centre on June 1, Goldfields Art Centre in Kalgoorlie on June 2, the Freo Social on June 5, Geraldton’s Queens Park Theatre on June 6, Federation Park in Exmouth on June 8, Karratha’s Red Earth Arts Precinct on June 11 and 12, Port Hedland’s Matt Dann Theatre & Cinema on June 13, and Broome’s Roebuck Bay Hotel on June 15.