Paul Kelly Christmas Myer Music Bowl event sells out

Paul Kelly’s Christmas event Making Gravy at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne has sold out.

Promoter Frontier Touring confirmed that all 12,000 tickets for the December 21 show have been snapped up.

The show includes Gang of Youths, Meg Mac and Gretta Ray.

The event raises money for Sacred Heart Mission’s continuing work combatinghomelessness in Melbourne at the toughest time of year.

There will be a limited edition event t-shirt available for sale. Sacred Heart Mission will also have collection points at the Bowl.

Kelly wrote the Christmas classic How To Make Gravy’ after John Farnham’s guitarist Lindsey Fields asked him to record a song for the 1996 charity record The Spirit Of Christmas to raise money for the Salvation Army.

Kelly opted to do ‘Christmas Must Be Tonight’ by The Band’s Robbie Robertson.

When told James Blundell had already done it, Kelly decided to write his own.

The five-minute 10-second song was written from the perspective of a newly imprisoned man penning a letter to his brother lamenting on how he’ll miss the family’s Christmas celebrations.

It was the third in a trilogy in which the character appears, after ‘To Her Door’ (1987) and ‘Love Never Runs on Time’ (1994).

He had been taught the recipe – “Just add flour, salt, a little red wine and don’t forget a dollop of tomato sauce” – by his first father-in-law.

The song went on to be nominated for an APRA Song of the Year.

The Myer Music Bowl sell-out comes in the wake of ten sell-outs for his Life Is Fine tour.

The dates saw some extraordinary outpouring of affection and acclaim for the veteran singer-songwriter.

At the AEC Theatre In his original hometown Adelaide, in which he was joined by Steve Earle and Middle Kids, the crowd dragged him back for two encores despite the fact he’d already performed 31 songs.

The tour, along with ABC-TV’s broadcast of the Sydney Opera House Forecourt show, this week saw three albums return to the ARIA chart.

From tomorrow Kelly is in New Zealand playing three shows until the weekend.