Hello Sailor concert a tribute to mate Dave

Hello Sailor's tour will be a celebration of dead band mate Dave McArtney. Photo/supplied

HELLO Sailor's Graham Brazier is looking forward to the 40th Birthday Tour of the iconic Kiwi band, and shares with Cindy McQuade his thoughts on the tour, books, and how the tour is not going to be just a celebration of the band, but also of the life and music of his best friend, Dave McArtney.

"It's definitely going to be a celebration of him. We did shows not long after he passed away and that was very, very difficult. But this time it will be different. There will be no sadness."

Brazier and McArtney blazed at the vanguard of Kiwi sound during the 70s and 80s and throughout the decades and as band mates and successful solo artists, they formed a bond of friendship which morphed into brotherhood, says Brazier.

"We were blood brothers. There's not a day that goes by when I don't think of him. I had to take grief counselling in the end, and it definitely helped. Although I had lost my father and brother, the death of my best friend was something else."

Some people might find it surprising to hear the extroverted performer talking so openly about the gaping hole of grief , but off stage the well spoken Brazier is night to the day of his strutting, on-stage alter ego.

"I'm actually quite shy believe it or not. But I have always been a performer and once I get on that stage the music and adrenalin just takes over."

My uncle is someone who knows Brazier well and describes him as a scholar and a gentleman, someone who is extremely well read and thoughtful.

It figures, since he grew up living upstairs from his mother's rare book shop in Auckland's Dominion Road and works there to this day, amassing his own collection of middle American first editions by the likes of William S Burroghs and Jack Kerouac.

And it's the quiet of books that nourish his own creativity. "If dreams are the cinema of the subconscious mind, then surely books must be the script, " he says of the books he devours voraciously.

The creativity is still flowing and he is working on a fourth solo album with OMC producer Alan Jansson. And of course, there will be a song for his best mate called Waiting Around The Bend which is about Dave.

In the meantime, there's a show to get on the road - and what a show it's going to be. With Hello Sailor's Kiwi style of rock 'n' soul and a support act called Band of Brothers featuring Jordan Luck and Dave Ghent (The Exponents) Peter Urlich (Th' Dudes) Eddie Rayner (Split Enz), Brett Adams (The Mockers), Brian Bell (Dead Flowers), this tour is also a celebration of some of the greats of New Zealand music.

Details
What: Hello Sailor 40th Anniversary Tour
Where: Baycourt Theatre
When: Wednesday 9 September
Tickets: Ticketek