AMERICA – Featuring Founding Members DEWEY BUNNELL and GERRY BECKLEY
Australian Tour 2012 Tickets Selling Fast!
With America’s 2012 Australian tour fast approaching tickets to all shows across the country are selling incredible fast. Don’t miss your opportunity to catch the celebrated Grammy Award-winning perennial classic rock band featuring founding members Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. AMERICA harmonised their way to the top of the charts with a string of legendary hits including A Horse With No Name, Ventura Highway, You Can Do Magic, Tin Man, Daisy Jane, I Need You, Lonely People and Sister Golden Hair. Their recording success stretched throughout the 70’s and 80’s with the legendary George Martin producing seven of their albums. 42 years later, these friends are still making music together, touring the world and thrilling audiences with their timeless sound.
Joining the legendary America as special guest at each show is Australian 90’s pop sensation Rick Price.
AMERICA TOUR DATES – SEPTEMBER 2012
Thursday September 6, 2012 – HAMER HALL, MELBOURNE
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: Ticketmaster 1300 139 588 or www.ticketmaster.com.au
Friday September 7, 2012 – WREST POINT ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE, HOBART
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: Venue Box Office 1300 795 257 or www.tixtas.com.au
Sunday September 9, 2012 – CANBERRA THEATRE
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: (02) 6275 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
Monday September 10, 2012 – ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Wednesday September 12, 2012 – PERTH CONCERT HALL
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: BOCS 1800 193 300 or www.bocsticketing.com.au
Friday September 14, 2012 – WIN ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE, WOLLONGONG (Theatre Mode)
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: Ticketek 132 849 or www.ticketek.com.au
Saturday September 15, 2012 TWIN TOWNS AUDITORIUM, TWEED HEADS
With Special Guest Rick Price
Bookings: 1800 014 014
AMERICA BIOGRAPHY
Founding members, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell (along with former band mate Dan Peek) met in high school in London in the late 1960s and quickly harmonized their way to the top of the charts on the strength of their signature song “A Horse With No Name”. AMERICA became a global household name and paved the way with an impressive string of hits following the success of their first #1 single. Forty years later, these friends are still making music together, touring the world and thrilling audiences with their timeless sound. Their journey has found them exploring a wide variety of musical terrain. Their best-known tunes, which also include “I Need You,” “Ventura Highway,” “Don’t Cross The River,” “Tin Man,” “Lonely People,” and “Sister Golden Hair” were cornerstones of 1970’s Top 40 and FM rock radio. Yet beyond their impressive catalogue of hits, listeners would discover there was always much more to America than surface perceptions. The combination of Gerry Beckley’s melodic pop rock and Dewey Bunnell’s use of folk-jazz elements, slinky Latin-leaning rhythms and impressionistic lyric imagery contrasted well with Dan Peek’s more traditional country-rock leanings and highly personal lyrics.
AMERICA albums garnered six certified gold and/or platinum, with their first greatest hits collection, “History”, hitting four+ million in sales–displayed a fuller range of the trio’s talents than did their singles. Their material encompassed an ambitious artistic swath; from effects-laden rockers to oddball medleys to soul-bearing ballads, America displayed a flawless blend of disparate genres and styles as wide-open as the great American plains. Enjoying massive success early in their career, America earned their stripes as musical soldiers on the battlefield amidst the excess, craziness and chaos of the 70’s. The trio won the Grammy® for Best New Artist in 1972 and began working with George Martin and Geoff Emerick in 1974. This successful team went on to record seven albums and several Top Ten hits, including “Tin Man” and “Sister Golden Hair”.
By the mid-70s, inter-band conflicts combined with an exhaustive touring and recording schedule exacted its toll on the group. With Peek’s departure from the fold in 1977, his band mates rose to the challenge and carried on as a duo. Shifts in sound and direction, changes in producers and managers, and a renewed dedication to the craft of songwriting helped rocket AMERICA to the upper reaches of the pop charts in 1982 with their smash single, “You Can Do Magic.” During this tumultuous time in their career, Beckley and Bunnell immersed themselves in their craft, infusing a newfound maturity into their rich body of work. Their growth as singers, songwriters and musicians has continued into the present day as illustrated by landmark releases such as 2000’s Highway 3-disc box set, 2002’s Holiday Harmony, an album comprised of seasonal classics and live showcases, 2007’s Here & Now and 2009’s Live In Concert: Wildwood Springs.
In the midst of their 42nd-year anniversary of music making, AMERICA continues to evolve while remaining a perennial mainstay on the domestic and international concert circuit and a cornerstone of 70’s Top 40 and FM rock radio. In addition to their classics, AMERICA is revisiting their roots as writers and artists. The show features songs reflecting some of their song-writing inspirations as well as showcasing their first album America with a very special acoustic set featuring standards such as “I Need You” and “Three Roses”, as well as some never-before-performed deep cuts.
From anonymous horses to fast-moving trains, AMERICA’s extraordinary four-decade musical legacy of consummately crafted pop/rock songs, trademark lush harmonies and evocative lyrical landscapes will never go out of style.
