Hannah Aldridge and Katie Bates

Hannah Aldridge is back and she’s celebrating the 10 Year Anniversary of her debut album “Razorwire”. This time she brings her band with her, breathing new life into the songs that started her career a decade ago. For this exclusive show in Sydney at the Midnight Special she is joined by Melbourne’s Katie Bates, playing a stripped back version of the show.

Hannah grew up on the muddy banks of Muscle Shoals—her birthright is music and Alabama. A reckoning between her coming-to-age in the South and a lifetime of trying to create an identity outside of it, her songs strike a delicate balance between rebellion and self-discovery. With a voice equal parts gritty and melodic, Hannah took to the road, entertaining crowds in ten countries and three continents with her acclaimed debut album Razor Wire, superb follow-up Gold Rush and Live in Black and White – a beautifully captured live album recorded in London, England.

In 2023 Aldridge expanded her artistic vision with the ambitious, cinematic Dream of America, which was released on Swedish alternative indie label, Icons Creating Evil Art. It peers through the lens of fading Hollywood starlets, charming psychopaths and weary vagabonds – navigating society’s underbelly through dark, romantic vignettes.

Her music treads a fine line between the genial charm of Americana, and the raw, hypnotic and occasionally electronic stylings of what some might like to call ‘noir indie pop’. Deploying a charming blend of power and vulnerability, Aldridge delivers her stories with all the conviction of a church bell ringing out through the streets of a small Alabama town.

Melbourne Americana singer-songwriter Katie Bates has A sound pays respect to the likes of Gillian Welch, Tom Petty, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris but she is also heavily influenced by Nirvana & PJ Harvey. Katie’s songs brim with honesty and more than a hint of grunge and grit. She brings an attitude to the table that is seldom seen in the Americana/roots scene – a fire in the belly that simmers beneath a sweet surface of a gifted storyteller.