Mick Hart: Flowers Power.

Mick Hart & The Sure Thing play Lismore University on Thursday, The Alley on Friday, the Surfers Paradise Beergarden on Saturday, the Pacific Hotel, Yamba on Sunday afternoon and the Great Northern, Byron Bay on Sunday night.

Far and away one of Australia’s most underrated songwriting and performing talents, Mick Hart continued to astound with the release of his second album Upside Down In The Full Face Of Optimism. The Follow up to his Still The Flowers Bloom debut, Upside Down steered away from the cascading bombast of it’s predecessor, instead drawing you in with a more intimate and subtle approach - lulling you into a sense of well being before cascading head first into it’s wailing ending. His live audience shares his passion at it’s most primal, and now we’re set to loose him as he packs up and heads overseas. And it’s not just for a quick couple of gigs, either…

“In the last few years we’ve had a lot of touring going overseas, about six times to Europe and the UK and a couple of times to the states,” he explains. “There’s a lot of hard work been done leading up to this relocation, and it’s been really promising and enjoyable. You go over to France for a couple of weeks and make an impact, but it’s hard to sustain if you’re no there to nurture it. It’s like something’s just telling me the time is right, go fly, be free… I don’t want to build it up to much, just keep it humble and see how it goes.”

The decision to relocate was not taken lightly.

I’ve kind of been putting it off for a couple of years,” he admits. “Something happened early this year, and I really have to do it. It’s not easy to pack up and go, but it all feels really good. The records are finally getting a release over there, and that’s a big part of it.”

After this weekend’s series of gigs it may well be a while before we’ve again got the pleasure of catching Mick and his band The Sure Thing in full flight, but rest assured he’ll have a swag of new tunes ready and waiting.

“I’ve got about 160 songs that I really believe in,” He says. “When you’re in a new place it’s really inspiring. There’s a lot of songs on the last album that I wrote overseas. That’s one of the reasons to go, just to get a fresh perspective on things. Something just happens when you’re in a different place and a different headspace.”