Tour Diary: On The Road With Joan & The Giants

Firstly to kick off this tour diary, this opportunity to support Belinda Carlisle around Australia was a huge dream come true for the four of us. This was our very first Australia wide support tour, after a few years of headlining small venues on the East Coast - this was a big opportunity to play to a new audience, and have the best time doing it.

Big thank you to our manager Mitch Clark and Premier Artists for making this happen, to Belinda for getting us on board and to Belinda’s incredible team for making the tour run so smoothly. Special shoutout to Phil, our sound engineer on the road who gave us so much of his time and helped us every step of the way. Also shout out to the WA government for their tour grants, as that massively helped us fund the tour.

We were very lucky to get this opportunity, as initially before the shows were rescheduled Belinda had a band from New York doing the whole Aus tour support, but they couldn’t do the rescheduled dates - so we feel very grateful to have been chosen as their replacement.

Show 1 - THE ASTOR, PERTH (BOORLOO)

We kicked off the tour supporting Belinda at the Astor Theatre in our home town of Perth. This was such a special show to start with as we’d never played the Astor and it was definitely a big goal to perform at this beautiful, iconic Boorloo venue.

We arrived for sound check and introduced ourselves to the team, nervous as ever. They were all super welcoming, and we immediately felt included by Belinda’s manager, tour manager and roadies. The reason I point this out, as sometimes as the support act you can feel like the last priority, as it’s obviously all about the headliner - so when a team makes you feel welcomed, it’s very special and means a lot.

We met Belinda very briefly as she came on stage to search for some lost sunglasses, with the four of us quickly jumping to say HELLO (we’re all big fans, so this was exciting). She was genuinely so lovely from the start to the end, and this just makes her even more of an icon. Whenever she had the chance, she would say hello and have a chat and that is pretty damn cool.

We all got dressed up for the show after our sound check, I got my makeup done for the first time ever by my good friend Nadia Duca Makeup, who wanted to support me for the start of the tour and make me feel pretty, so that was extra special!

We were all super nervous backstage for this show, and it was a blessing to play to a home town crowd, with some family and friends in the audience to make us feel a little less scared. Every audience on this tour arrived early, which is so lovely for us as the support band to be able to play to a full crowd - big shout out to people who come early to shows to see the support act too.

The energy at the Astor was epic, as it was mostly a standing audience and people were moving and getting around the songs, which felt amazing. One of the absolute highlights of the tour for sure.

Also one important thing to note for this whole tour, is our drummer Riley [Sutton] unfortunately broke his wrist a few weeks before the tour started at a social netball game, so he was playing every single set with his left arm. Special, huge shoutout to Riley, as he stayed so positive about it the whole time, and absolutely SMASHED it with one arm for every show. What a legend!!!!

SHOW 2 + 3: THE PALAIS, MELBOURNE (NAARM)

We flew to Melbourne the day after the Astor show, hoping all of our gear would arrive as we were leaving for a month and had lots of instruments and cases. After it all thankfully arrived on the other side, we piled into our accomodation and settled in to making some home cooked meals and taking it easy before the shows with some Yahtzee and comedy to ease the nerves.

On the Friday, we booked our Uber Max to the Palais Theatre (don’t get me started on loading our gear into Uber’s, that is probably the hardest part of tour haha), and driving into this venue was absolutely incredible. The outside is a beautiful, large, historical looking theatre right next to Luna Park, and I actually had no idea what we were in for.

We unloaded our gear, and walking into the Palais backstage, and slowly onto the stage for sound check to see a venue that literally stopped the most talkative band from saying any words except ‘WHAT THE HECK’. The old architecture of this historic building was breathtaking. We’d never played such a beautiful space before, and all of us just couldn’t comprehend that we were about to perform two nights in a theatre that has so much history, musical royalty and stories within those walls - if only they could talk.

It was also incredibly nerve wracking, as it was entirely seated. So on night 1, we came out and performed to a full crowd of a few thousand people that were all sitting down. It was a high energy set, that also felt intimate and vulnerable. It’s tricky with a seated crowd to gage if they are enjoying the songs, as they aren’t jumping up and down or dancing, so it’s a little scarier than most of our shows.

At the end we got a photo with the audience, and I hope they all had just as much of a great time as we did. I was really happy with the set we put together, as we had a moment in the middle where the giants went off stage, and I performed a song called ‘Just for You’, and got to explain the story to the audience and have a really special moment with them. That was a highlight of every show for me, with the room quiet and the audience listening to the lyrics, that was super special.

On Saturday, we did it all again - not feeling any less nervous, just a little more excited as we knew what we were in for this time. Just have to thank Belinda again for having us, as those two shows and that venue was a DREAM come true. I also bumped into the iconic Tina Arena backstage, so that was a HUGE highlight.

SHOW 4 - THE CIVIC THEATRE, NEWCASTLE (MULUBINBA)

We flew in from Melbourne to Newcastle after the weekend shows on the Tuesday, and this time we hired a car to drive to Newcastle, then Sydney / Thirroul, then to Brisbane. The scary part was, I booked this entire tour from planes, to accomodation, to car rentals and I did my best, just hoping nothing would go wrong along the way.

I booked the largest car I could get in Newcastle, but on arrival myself and Riley went to check out the car, and knew as soon as we saw it that that was not going to be big enough to fit all of our gear and suitcases for the next few weeks.

We loaded as much as we could, and then put the rest into an Uber with our gorgeous manager haha. Getting to the accomodation, we stayed in 2 x bunk beds, all squeezed into an affordable place with a roof full of cracks, windows with no blinds, and a lingering smell of a bar at the end of a busy evening. You just gotta make it work on tour, and we were only staying there for one night.

We loaded into the venue for sound check, and once again this theatre was absolutely beautiful. It had a similar feeling to the Palais, with an old historical balcony, and two smaller balconies on the sides where you’d imagine a King or Queen would go if Australia had them. It was a theatre you’d picture in Shakespearean times or an old opera setting, just beautiful.

This show felt so good, and we loved playing this venue as we were more settled in with a seated audience at this point. We had a gorgeous green room upstairs, where we of course did our pre and after show ritual of a lot of Yahtzee games to settle the nerves, and went back to the accom ready to drive to Sydney and then to Thirroul to play Anita’s Theatre.

The best part of the car situation - the incredible Belinda team took all of our music gear in their trucks for the whole East Coast tour, so we could actually fit everything in our car. This genuinely saved the day, or we would have all been crushed by suitcases and instruments for hours of traveling haha.

SHOW 5 - ANITA’S THEATRE, THIRROUL

After the Newcastle show, unfortunately I could feel myself getting weak and quite sick and I knew I was in for a cold that was incoming quickly. We were all meant to stay in the same room again, but instead I quickly booked myself some solo accomodation in Sydney so I could get my body better fast before traveling again. I had what felt like an entire pharmacy of medicine to help me through the next shows, to perform as best as I could.

We got in the car from Sydney and made the drive down to Wollongong. This venue was more of a regional show, and the theatre was gorgeous. It was once a skating ring, then a movie theatre and then a performance space. The interior had that same old historical feeling of the Civic and Palais, it was really beautiful. The bathrooms were a big standout, with quaint old mirrors and chairs that looked like a mini thrown.

This time it was a standing audience, and we all got on stage and had a great time (even though I was sick and made quite a few mistakes, as I think the medicine all caught up with me at once). I was a little out of it, but definitely tried to pull it together and put on the best show we could. I felt like performance wise, this wasn’t our best show but we still had a great time with the audience.

SHOW 6 + 7 - THE ENMORE, SYDNEY (WARRANE)

After Anita’s Theatre, the sickness was full on board and I really wasn’t doing well. So once again booked my own accomodation and tried to sleep as much as I could before playing an absolute dream come true venue.

We have a photo from the 30th July 2022, from our first headliner East Coast shows where we stood outside the Enmore as it was one of our biggest goals and dreams to play it. At the time, we played a tiny sports bar in Bondi to about 7 people; my parents and a few friends who came down to watch. We never imagined we’d be back in 2 years ready to play this venue twice to a sold out crowd, supporting an icon. What a dream come true.

For some reason, when I have a high pressure situation I just seem to get sick, and I was determined to be as well as I could. I dosed up on Chinese Herbal cough medicine, Armaforce, Manuka honey and Demazin and got ready for sound check. Walking into this venue just felt like magic, it’s a standing bottom section, with a balcony of seats up the top. You can just feel the magic in the whole room, it is soaked in memories of iconic performances and artists who have graced that stage.

I remember we were all especially nervous for this one backstage, just a lot of jumps, a lot of dancing, a lot of hugs, a lot of silly banter. I was dosing up on a hectic amount of cough medicine, hoping and praying my voice would carry through the whole show without breaking into a cough. As a singer, that really is not a fun feeling. Anyway, we all put our hands in, did a WHOOF and jumped on stage. It was an absolute high being up there, and thankfully my voice held out and I had the time of my life. The second show was also a little scary vocally, but it all just felt like a dream by the end of it.

There were moments in these shows, I just had to be still and literally say to the audience I have to slow down, as this is going too fast and I want to hold onto every single second of it. It is crazy how fast a 30 minute set goes, the high adrenaline, the excitement, the emotional rollercoaster just all happens so fast.

The Enmore Theatre was a dream come true, completely exhilarating for the four of us. After our second show, we went and got a celebratory kebab, and went to bed.

SHOW 8 - TWIN TOWN, TWEED HEADS (BUNDJALUNG COUNTRY)

After the absolute high of the Enmore shows, four sleepless chooks dragged ourselves in the car and started driving to Tweed Heads. This was the part of the tour where the sleepless nights really started getting to us.

It’s a tricky part of it all, as the most important thing is a good sleep to ensure healthy bodies and a healthy attitude. By this point, I really hadn’t slept a whole lot, as the adrenaline and the highs of the shows just made my brain buzzed and awake for what felt like days on end. Also because there is so much to think about all the time, I just couldn’t get much rest.

The other side of this tour journey, is the guitarist and co-songwriter of the band is my ex boyfriend. So I feel like we’re pretty strong to be able to spend a whole lot of time on the road and in each other’s company without completely falling apart. In fact, most of the time communication remained healthy, even through some harder moments.

Thankfully Riley had good sleeps and took over a lot of the driving (basically all of it actually haha), which allowed me to get some sleep in the car. We stopped off at Port Macquarie and then Byron Bay which was absolutely stunning. It was my first time to Byron, and Riley and I went on a big walk up to the light house which was spectacular - strongly suggest this hike.

After a gorgeous stop over in Byron, where we stayed in some little beach huts and managed to hide from mosquitos we made our way to Tweed Heads.

This was such an interesting venue, it was in a club, on the 5th floor so load in was interesting. The room had lots of chairs, and it felt a little corporate but the actual show was so much fun! We had a great time with the crowd, lots of banter and played a lot of Yahtzee! Solid 10/10 time.

SHOW 9 + 10: THE TIVOLI, BRISBANE (MEANJIN)

We made our way to our first AirBnb of the trip, ready to settle in and make home cooked meals. We all had a go at making dinners and they were delish. I had finally recovered and got myself well again, ready for the last two shows of the Belinda tour at the Tivoli.

We got our gear in the car for the last time, and made our way to this beautiful venue. This is a venue Belinda absolutely loves, and has played before and wanted to make sure she did it again. I can see why, as there is a special feeling and I have to say these two crowds were the most loud, and energetic crowds of the tour. It was all standing, and the energy was high. We also decided to throw in a cover of ‘Zombie’ for these two shows, which I think are a crowd favourite and it got them going.

The first show was so much fun, but the second I think was our best set of the whole tour. Just the energy and the joy that we had for every single moment of that set. I went pretty hard with the vocals, and gave it all I had. There was no holding back, we just threw ourselves all in to these shows, and had the absolute time of our lives.

I was really sad for the last show, we got to the venue and it was hard to say goodbye to the most beautiful sound engineer Phil, to the roadies, to Belinda and her team - by the end of the tour, we sort of felt like we were just getting started and it felt like a big warm, happy family. Everyone was familiar, we had great banter with Belinda’s band, and we didn’t want to say goodbye.

I am so grateful the last show felt like the best of the whole tour, as it was incredible to go out on such a high. We had the absolute time of our lives, and just feel so grateful to have had such a positive experience with these shows.

When you’re touring and in a room, in a car, and constantly around the same people there are things you have to do to get some space, and clear your head and remain positive - but overall, it just went so smoothly and we had the time of our lives.

Thank you Belinda x