Tour news: Hello Sailor's roaring forties

Hello Sailor as they were in 1979. Photo / Supplied

You'll see the young Hello Sailor in this Sunday's episode of Westside. The Outrageous Fortune prequel visits Ponsonby's infamous "Mandrax Mansion" for a party where the young swaggering band crank out the aptly underworld-themed Son of Sam to the swaying guests.

"Westside is a hoot," says Sailor's Harry Lyon about the show which, as Outrageous Fortune did, uses one of the band's songs as its theme tune.

"It's the 70s man, bags of burglary, burns and boogie."

And the band's early days are getting another celebration. Hello Sailor will be playing a 40th anniversary show at Auckland's Powerstation on September 18.

They'll have some mates for company too - a local supergroup entitled Band of Brothers consisting of Jordan Luck (Exponents), Peter Urlich (Th' Dudes), Eddie Rayner (Split Enz), Brett Adams (The Mockers/The Bads), Peter Warren (DD Smash), Bryan Bell (Dead Flowers), Dave Gent (Exponents) playing songs from members' old groups.

Lyon says Sailor's 40th dates from the band's formation in April-May 1975 which was followed by their first paying gig in Tokoroa, on June 5 of that year.

"It all went swimmingly well until we got sprung liberating most of the bottles from the top shelf of the bar we played in Napier, which is where we went after Tokoroa. By the end of September though we had played over 40 shows so we were under way. So we figure the band has been going for 40 years."

The anniversary show, of course, will be without guitarist-singer Dave McArtney who passed away in 2013.

"After Dave died we gave a lot of consideration to deciding whether to keep going. In the end we decided he would want the band to continue.

"We had a rehearsal ... we played a couple of Dave's songs that were in our current set and it felt good, and the right thing to be doing.

"We thought 'Who else is going to keep Dave's music alive if it's not us? That pretty much did it for us. We all still miss him terribly but 'you in my brain, you in my heart" has taken on a new meaning," says Lyon quoting from McArtney's Gutter Black.

McArtney's place in the line-up has been taken by Jimmy Taylor who will join Lyon, frontman Graham Brazier, drummer Rick Ball, bassist Paul Woolright and keyboardist Stuart Pearce.

wLyon hasn't seen how the band has been depicted in Westside but is looking forward to it. Hello Sailor's connection to TV's West dynasty has been a bonus in the past decade.

"Outrageous Fortune helped introduce the band to another generation of fans. For some we are the Outrageous Fortune band and they may be unaware of the 30-odd years that preceded the show."

Tickets are on sale via Ticketmaster from midday Monday June 29.

- TimeOut