Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
Forum Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Tuesday 24 February 2026

Recorded by eckythump, mastered by kiwichrisha (Chris Hartstonge)

Source: Nokia Lumia 930 (called Lumia Icon in North America) w/built-in HAAC mics > Audio Recorder Pro app > 16bit/44.1 KHz PCM/WAV
Encoding: MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab > FLAC (Level 8)

Track List:

Set 1:
00 - Introduction
01 - I Want To Sing That Rock and Roll
02 - Empty Trainload Of Sky
03 - Cumberland Gap
04 - My First Lover
05 - Bells Of Harlem
06 - Howdy Howdy
07 - To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)
08 - Dark Turn Of Mind
09 - Wrecking Ball
10 - Ruby

Set 2:
11 - Welcome back
12 - Annabelle
13 - What We Had
14 - Hard Times
15 - Everything Is Free
16 - Hashtag
17 - Six White Horses
18 - Desperados Waiting For A Train
19 - The Way It Goes
encore
20 - Make Me A Pallet On The Floor
21 - Look At Miss Ohio
encore
22 - I Hear Them All / This Land Is Your Land
23 - I'll Fly Away
encore
24 - Revelator

Show Notes: Australia had to wait 9 years for Gillian and Dave to return to Australia for a tremendous run of sold out shows in Melbourne and Sydney in early 2025 (I captured 4 of the Melbourne shows), so it was a great surprise to see them return just over a year later, taking in more parts of the country, and a couple of different venues in Melbourne to last year's Hamer Hall, starting off with the standing GA venue of The Forum, which they had last played in 2004 and referenced by Gillian and Dave during the show. This time however it was just the two of them, Paul Kowert did not join them for this tour.

Acknowledging the duo were only here last year, they said they were making an effort to play some songs they didn't last year and they lived up to that promise, playing plenty of songs that didn't make it in the 2025 shows, including the rarely played Dark Turn Of Mind. So many show highlights, but for me the standout was the excellent crowd singing on Look At Miss Ohio, great job Melbourne, it sounded fantastic. Some great covers too, notably Guy Clark's Desperados Waiting For A Train, and I Hear Them All / This Land Is Your Land.

'We love you Melbourne see you next time!' Dave told the audience at the end. Next time will only be a few days away at the Palais for many in the audience including yours truly, but let's make this an annual tradition - see you in 2027? I doubt anyone who attended this show would argue with that.

Recording Notes: While the Forum is mostly a standing only venue, there are some booths behind the main standing floor area which you can pay a little extra for and enjoy a great view of the stage, which is where I was for this show. The recording came out nice and clear, nicely mastered by Chris for your enjoyment. Some moron was talking a bit quite loudly towards the end of the first set off to my side, but he piped down for the second set, and it won't ruin your listening of this excellent recording. Enjoy!

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show: