More Than the Setlist: What Keeps Me Playing After All These Years

I picked up my first guitar at 17.

At the time, I probably thought I was just learning a few chords. Like most young musicians, I wanted to play songs I loved, get better, maybe find my way onto a stage somewhere and see what happened.

I did not know then that music would become the thread running through most of my life.

More than 30 years later, I am still here. Still packing gear into venues. Still sound checking. Still tuning guitars. Still driving home late after gigs and dodging roos (most times!). Still watching rooms change when the right song lands at the right time.

A lot has changed since those early days. The gear is better. The songs have changed. The venues (and publicans) have changed. The way people find music has definitely changed. But the part that keeps me coming back has stayed pretty much the same.

It is the people.

There is something about live music that cannot be fully explained until you are in the room. It is not just sound coming through speakers. It is the look between two people when a song means something to them. It is the table that starts off quietly having dinner, then suddenly becomes the loudest group in the room. It is the person who was only half-listening until one chorus pulls them straight back to another time in their life.

Those are the moments that stay with me.

Over the years, I have played pubs, clubs, weddings, private parties, corporate events, fundraisers and community nights across Cowra, Orange, Bathurst, Young and the wider Central West. Every room has its own personality. Some crowds are ready to sing from the first song. Some take a little longer. Some want energy. Some want something more relaxed. Some nights are about dancing. Some are about memories.

That is the job, really.

It is not just knowing songs. It is learning how to read people.

After so many years of performing, you start to understand that a setlist is only a starting point. The real show is what happens between the songs. It is knowing when to lift the room, when to pull it back, when to let people sit inside a song for a while, and when to throw in something that wakes everybody up.

People often ask how I have kept doing this for so long. The honest answer is that there are still moments on stage that feel brand new.

A familiar song can still surprise you. A crowd can still catch you off guard. A quiet night can still turn into something special. A wedding song can still hit harder than expected. A pub gig can still remind you that ordinary nights are often the ones people remember most.

That is one of the great things about playing covers. People already have a history with the songs. I am not starting from nothing. I am stepping into memories that are already there.

A song might remind someone of their parents. Their first car. A mate they miss. A wedding. A breakup. A better time. A harder time. A night out years ago that still makes them smile.

The privilege is getting to be part of that for a few minutes.

Original music has become part of that same story for me too. Songs like “Hold On To Me” come from real places, real feelings and real people. Whether I am singing something I wrote myself or playing a song people have known for decades, the aim is the same: make it feel honest.

That matters more to me now than it probably ever has.

When you have been performing for this long, you stop chasing the idea of impressing everybody. You start caring more about connection. You want people to leave feeling like the night gave them something. A laugh. A memory. A song stuck in their head. A reason to stay for one more drink. A moment with someone they care about.

I am based in Cowra, and this region has shaped a lot of who I am as a musician. Central West NSW has been good to me. I have played to familiar faces, new faces, full rooms, quiet corners, big celebrations and small gatherings that ended up meaning just as much.

There is a loyalty in regional music that I have never taken for granted.

People come back. Venues keep calling. Couples remember who played their wedding. Someone will come up years later and mention a gig I had almost forgotten, then tell me exactly what song they remembered.

That sort of thing keeps you humble.

It also keeps you going.

Because after all the years, all the kilometres, all the late nights and all the songs, the best part is still simple.

A room full of people, a guitar, a microphone, and that moment where the music stops being something they are watching and becomes something they are part of.

That is still enough for me.