For forty years, Boom Crash Opera has been topping the Australian music charts and touring their incredible music. They say life begins at forty, and that may just be true for the band.
To celebrate their fortieth anniversary, Boom Crash Opera have embarked on a massive national tour, Hands Up In The Air – The Singles Tour.
The band formed in Melbourne in 1985, producing their intoxicating mix of Indi pop and stadium rock, quirky song structures and exuberant choruses. The result has been thirteen top fifty singles and five top fifty albums. Boom Crash Opera’s songs are ingrained in our Australian culture.
Boom Crash Opera’s lead vocalist Dale Ryder spoke to Glam Adelaide about the band, how his first gig with the band came about and what it is about the band that has stood the test of time and still packs houses wherever they perform.
“We’re all good friends. We all understand our role and the hierarchy that exists there. As for the band itself, the music’s still fun to play and we haven’t become jaded. I think the crowd kind of notices that – there’s still this exuberance we have when we play our music. It even comes in at rehearsal. We’ve always tried to give the crowd what they paid for and we also just try to have fun amongst ourselves.”
Soon after the band started, they were on the hunt for a new lead vocalist. Dale shared the story of how he was offered the position.
“I was in a band with the drummer for Boom Crash Opera, Peter Maslen. It was a cover band just roaming around the country. He played me a demo from Peter Farnan and Richard Pleasance from Boom Crash Opera. It was a song called Hands Up In the Air. It was a pretty cool song and I was very impressed. I told Peter I was keen to sing and he let me know the band was actually looking for a new lead singer. So I met the band and here I am now, still with them.”
The band has a huge number of tours and live performances to their name, so we asked Dale if there are any standout moments from the band’s history.
“There are a lot of favourite moments from over the years. Certain gigs do stand out for different reasons. I remember in the old days when we first started playing in the middle of nowhere with seven people in the audience. That turned out to be one of our favourite gigs.”
The Hands Up In The Air – The Singles Tour will be a great wall-to-wall of hits. The show will also feature Boom Crash Opera’s new single, Latest Hustle, a stomping glam rock hit.
“The show is called Hands Up In The Air – The Singles Tour, so we’re just going to do all our singles from over the years. It’s remarkable how many singles we had. I didn’t think we had enough to do an entire set of singles and keep the crowd interested. Some of the singles are actually really hard to sing live, which is why we’ve probably never performed some of these before outside the studio. There are also going to be four or five new songs that we haven’t really played in the last 20 or 30 years.”
Dale Ryder and Boom Crash Opera will be at The Gov this Friday 10 October.
Boom Crash Opera
Hands Up In The Air — The Singles Tour 2025
The Gov, Hindmarsh SA
Friday 10 October at 7.30pm
https://boomcrashopera.com/
More News
