Little May

Usually when a band releases an album, they will spend a few weeks or months touring around their home country, showing the new music off to their local fan base before heading abroad. For Australian band Little May however, they have chosen to turn this model on its head by doing the world tour first and now they return home to tour Australia.

“There is a part of me that would have loved to have done an Australian tour straight after the release, because I’m a bit of a homebody,” reflected vocalist Hannah Field, before adding “It was definitely out of our comfort zone, travelling the world not knowing the response we were going to get, but in the end it was really quite successful.”

Having completed a world tour, the ladies could have easily taken a break from performing but instead they chose to take the stage again supporting City & Colour during their Australian tour. “We were really lucky to get the support [slot] because City & Colour are amazing, but also because it gave us a lot of time to prepare and strengthen up the live show,” Hannah explained.

During that run of shows Hannah says City & Colour’s Dallas Green taught her some extremely valuable lessons, not only professionally but also personally.

“You never know when you’re going to meet your idols or what they’re going to be like, but meeting him was really refreshing to know that no matter how successful you get you can always be the same appreciative down to earth person,” she reflected.

Not only did performing in these sideshows allow Hannah and band mates Liz and Annie to meet and learn from their idols but it also allowed them to fine tune their own live show and work out some of the kinks. When asked about one such hiccup during the first Sydney show on the support tour, Hannah explained her philosophy to addressing technical problems. “I think it’s best to acknowledge them and be natural about it instead of freaking out and not being honest with audience,” she said, to which she added while laughing sheepishly, “I would prefer that not to happen again.”

Hannah’s excitement ahead of the tour was palpable when she was describing what to expect.

“I think it’s going to be much better than our last tour, not that the last tour was bad, I just think we’ve improved as a whole band in our live performance and confidence,” she enthused. “We’re thinking a lot more dynamically in relation to our performances. We want to give everyone a really fun performance because our music can be a little depressing at times, so you shouldn’t expect it to be all tears, we mix it up and have a bit of fun banter with the audience.” (JA)

May 6. Metro Theatre, 624 George St, Sydney. $25.90+b.f. Tickets & info: metrotheatre.com.au