Spooky Men Head to HOTA in June
HOTA Gold Coast hosts The Spooky Men's Chorale on 4 June as the group marks its anniversary with songs and humour.
What’s happening?
The Spooky Men’s Chorale will bring its anniversary tour to HOTA Gold Coast on Thursday, 4 June at 7.30 pm.
The Gold Coast show is part of the Very Spooky Queensland Tour, which starts after a warm-up concert in Melbourne on Sunday, 3 May. The Queensland run also includes Brisbane, Macleay Island, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maleny and Noosa.
After Queensland, the group will head to the Enmore Theatre in Sydney on Thursday 11 June, before leaving for a 28-gig UK tour.
The anniversary run celebrates 25 Years of Pointless Grandeur and marks a major chapter for the bearded and hatted vocal group.
Why it matters?
This gives Gold Coast audiences a chance to see one of Australia’s most unusual and best-loved live acts during a landmark year.
The group has built a loyal following through close harmonies, humour, theatre and storytelling. Over time, they have helped reshape how men’s singing is seen on stage.
The Guardian captured that mix well, writing, “It takes a rare skill to be very silly, thoughtful, and sing in perfect harmony, but the Spooky Men’s Chorale manage to achieve just that.”
Local Impact
For the Gold Coast, the HOTA performance places the city on a select Queensland run during the group’s anniversary celebrations.
It also brings a nationally known act to a major local venue, giving fans a chance to catch the show without travelling to Brisbane or Sydney.
By the numbers
The group is marking 25 years since its first performance on 4 August 2001 at Eastside Paddington Church.
Since then, the chorale has played nearly 1000 gigs and released 8 albums, showing the scale of its long run.
The group has already completed 14 tours of the UK and Europe, and a 28-gig UK tour will follow this Australian run.
Zoom In
Stephen Taberner founded the Spooky Men’s Chorale and draws inspiration from the Georgian choirs of the Caucasian mountains.
Its style both celebrates and pokes fun at masculinity. The result, according to the tour material, is “a unique cocktail of mighty boofiness, charming stupidity, and exquisite tenderness that may well bring a tear to your eye.”
Taberner said this anniversary show will offer more than a standard concert.
“This show will also offer the chance to join a massed audience choir, The Axis of Spook, for a ridiculous musical surround experience. There will be special spooky guests, a musical favourites lottery and a massed spooky man finale!”
He added, “Gird your loins: this is the one spooky show in the history of spooky shows that you should not miss....”
Zoom Out
What started as a genial group of bearded men on stage in 2001 has grown into a long-running act with strong fan loyalty in Australia and overseas.
This anniversary run also looks back at where the group began, while bringing forward the best of its current material. The Sydney show is being framed as a birthday party, a retrospective and a celebration of everything the group has become.
What To Look For Next?
As the anniversary tour moves through Queensland, the HOTA performance will give Gold Coast audiences their turn in a wider celebration of the group’s 25 years on stage.
The mix of retrospective moments and current material is expected to shape the night.
