Paul Kelly
- Linda Dunjey
- Aug 26
- 2 min read
Paul Kelly, Lucinda Williams and Fanny Lumsden live at RAC Arena, Perth | 26 August 2025
Paul Kelly’s first sold-out arena tour began in Perth at the RAC Arena on Tuesday night, a significant step for the veteran songwriter who has spent decades shaping Australia’s musical landscape. While the scale was bigger than anything he has attempted before, the night proved that Kelly’s strength remains in the detail—his ability to make even the largest of rooms feel personal.
The evening opened with Fanny Lumsden, whose upbeat country-folk songs set a welcoming tone. With her band, The Prawn Stars, she brought energy and humour to the stage, her rural storytelling connecting easily with the crowd. Her closing number, “Dig,” turned the arena into a singalong, a sign of her growing confidence as a festival and support-act regular.
Lucinda Williams followed with a set that leaned on her deep back catalogue while also touching on recent work. At 72, and performing after her recovery from a stroke in 2020, Williams is no longer a physical presence on guitar, but her voice has lost none of its character. Songs like “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” and “Fruits of My Labor” drew warm recognition, while her stories of Blaze Foley and Townes Van Zandt added context and texture. A cover of The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” highlighted by Mark Ford’s guitar work, was a standout moment. Her performance moved quickly from song to song, understated but effective.
Kelly began his set with “Houndstooth Dress,” a perfect opener that set the pace for the night. Early classics like “Before Too Long” sat alongside newe-r material, including the debut of “Rita Wrote a Letter,” a sequel to “How to Make Gravy.” The song, performed live for the first time, was warmly received and suggested Kelly is still adding meaningful chapters to his catalogue.
His band—long-time collaborators Peter Luscombe and Bill MacDonald, alongside Cameron Bruce, Dan Kelly, Jesse Hitchcock and Ash Naylor—played with precision and ease, giving the show a polished but not overly slick feel. Kelly acknowledged their contributions, noting decades of work together, and the chemistry was evident.
The set mixed crowd favourites with deeper cuts, punctuated by Kelly’s typical storytelling. Not every moment was flawless—he lost his place briefly in “Deeper Water” and laughed it off—but the imperfections only added to the sense of informality he cultivates.
The closing run of “From Little Things Big Things Grow,” “How to Make Gravy,” and an a cappella “Meet Me in the Middle of the Air” gave the concert its strongest emotional impact. Rather than overwhelming the audience with production, Kelly kept the focus on the songs themselves.
As first nights go, this was a confident beginning. The move to arenas didn’t radically change Kelly’s approach, but it didn’t need to. His strength has always been in connecting through story and song, and at RAC Arena he showed he can do that just as effectively on a large stage as he has for years in smaller rooms.
Photography by Linda Dunjey
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