He was named Rome’s Ambassador to the world last year, awarded as “Global Icon” by GQ magazine, but he was also barred entry from a suburban Japanese restaurant in Melbourne for not wearing the correct attire, on a Friday, at lunchtime, in 37° heat. A non-story that became global news.
Whether he’s telling the story, or people are telling a story about him, life’s always interesting if you’re Russell Crowe.
In May and June, he’s playing music and bringing his Indoor Garden Party to towns and cities on the east coast.
An “Indoor Garden Party” is, he says “an event, a band, a happening. It’s fluid. The personnel changes, but it’s always big. It’s like a festival where I gather people I admire, musicians and storytellers, and we put on a show.”
Until January this year, with 2 concerts in his home town of Coffs Harbour, Crowe had not performed music in Australia since 2014. Yet, within that same time, he had done announced and unannounced concerts in New York, London, Leeds, Dublin, Stockholm, Reykjavik, LA and released the Indoor Garden Party Album, The Musical.
The concept started in 2009 in a pub outside London owned by the chat show legend, Michael Parkinson, and it has kept going in a haphazard, ad lib way ever since.
With this configuration, Crowe brings to the foreground The Gentlemen Barbers, who he has been quietly tinkering with for the last four years.
With Special Guest Marcia Hines.