Celebrating two decades as a duo, The Presets have announced the ‘20 Years. 20 Nights’ DJ tour across small clubs, RSLs and venues across Australia. Find more details below, and read our interview with The Presets’ Julian Hamilton on the tour’s inspiration and what to expect.
With the tour spanning July to September, The Presets – aka Kim Moyes and Julian Hamilton – will hit the decks each weekend for three months across Australia. They’ll largely bypass major cities for regional and suburban stops, with dates in Mulgrave, Townsville, Airlie Beach, Torquay, Dee Why and more. Tickets are on sale now here: find the full list of dates and venues below, with supports for each night to be announced.
Hamilton told NME that the tour was inspired by the pure joy of recent one-off DJ sets in smaller venues, including a February set at Club 77 in Sydney – home to some of the duo’s first shows back in 2003. The tour marks a chance to get back to basics, in a (temporary) move away from the high production spectacles The Presets are now known for.
“We’ve been so lucky over our career to have played huge shows, music festivals and cricket grounds, and [travel] all over the world,” said Hamilton. “Playing in front of some big crowds has been super fun – but the really crazy fun times were playing the smaller little gigs. The little basement raves, share house parties and Surf Lifesaving Clubs on the Gold Coast or Rick’s Café in Brisbane – tiny rooms where there are a hundred people in there just heaving. That was the shit.”
The tour’s structure – mostly playing Thursday-Saturday nights – will be something of a throwback to the Presets’ past life of mid 2000s touring, of travelling across the city for weekend gigs. “They were really fun days of getting out for the weekends and coming home to decompress during the week,” Hamilton said. “Of course now, we’ve got our kids in school and there’s sports training and homework to help them with. There’s not as much decompressing during the week.”
‘20 Years. 20 Nights.’ marks The Presets’ first headlining tour since 2018, which was in support of their fourth and most recent album ‘HI VIZ’. Since ‘HI VIZ’, the two have released a steady stream of remixes, as well as a collaborative EP with Golden Features, ‘Raka’, 2022 standalone single ‘You Belong’, and their own solo work, too.
Under the moniker K.I.M., Moyes has released ‘Phenomena’, a documentary soundtrack, as well as two singles ‘Shake Your Brains’ and ‘Ghost Town’, with Connie Mitchell of Sneaky Sound System. Hamilton also released his first solo releases, a set of two singles, ‘Heartbeats Won’t Wait’ and ‘City of Love’, in 2021.
Since the ‘HI VIZ’ tour, the duo has played a variety of festivals across Australia, including Party in The Paddock, Hot Tub Wine Machine and NYE in The Park, and will perform at BASSINTHEGRASS in Darwin tomorrow alongside Amy Shark, Tones and I, Ocean Alley, Peach PRC and more. They wouldn’t be able to command festival crowds, said Hamilton, without playing smaller stages in their early years – occasionally to ambivalent audiences.
“[Playing small venues] gave us more experiences to get better on stage as well and learn what we were doing – because some of the early videos of us playing are not that great,” he laughed. “Frankly, I’m amazed people came and watched us at all. But it gave us a chance to hone our skills: small venues are so important, and I wish there were more of them in Sydney.”
Hamilton promised the DJ sets will be a chance to hear new Presets tracks, though they and the hits won’t necessarily be the focus, depending on the vibe. Unlike their recent festival appearances, the DJ tour offers the chance for the duo to step outside their discography and toy with material from some of their favourite artists – an eclectic list that includes house veteran Green Velvet, Belgian electronic outfit Soulwax, Brazilian techno DJ Anna and WA-born, UK-based producer HAAi. Ultimately, he pledged a unique set each night.
“The cool thing about these DJ nights is you’re able to tailor the gig and respond to the crowd based on how they’re enjoying,” said Hamilton. “Some crowds want to hear more of the hits, some kids want to get really dark and jump around to pumping techno. We’re used to playing festivals and our own shows where people come to hear all our songs. But we wanna treat these more like house parties, and we’re hanging out.”
The Presets’ Australian dates for the ‘20 Years. 20 Nights’ DJ tour are:
JULY
Friday 14 – Village Green Hotel, Mulgrave
Saturday 15 – Pier Bandroom, Franston
Thursday 20 – Beach Hotel, Byron Bay
Friday 21 – Friday’s Riverside, Brisbane
Saturday 22 – Kings Beach Tavern, Caloundra
Friday 28 – Burleigh Bazaar, Gold Coast
Saturday 29 – C.EX, Coffs Harbour
AUGUST
Friday 4 – Shoal Bay Country Club, Shoal Bay
Saturday 5 – Drifters Wharf, Central Coast
Thursday 10 – Gilligan’s, Cairns
Friday 11 – Kirwan Tavern (Outdoors), Townsville
Saturday 12 – Magnums Hotel, Airlie Beach
Friday 18 – Beer Deluxe, Albury
Saturday 19 – Torquay Hotel, Torquay
Friday 25 – UOW Uni Bar, Wollongong
Saturday 26 – Kambri Anu, Canberra
Wednesday 30 – The Station, Perisher
SEPTEMBER
Friday 1 – Miranda Hotel, Sydney
Saturday 2 – Dee Why RSL, Sydney
Saturday 9 – Monsoons, Darwin