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      Hilltop Hoods in San Francisco

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      November 10, 2019

      Sunday   8:00 PM

      628 Divisadero Street
      San Francisco, California 94117

      Hilltop Hoods

      with Adrian Eagle
      Nine ARIAs. Multi-platinum sales. Half a billion global streams. Songs embedded in thenational consciousness.The legacy of the Hilltop Hoods is already undeniable. They helped create hip hop as a localgenre in Australia.1955 and Cosby Sweater reached the top five in the ARIA charts and have both reachedsix-times platinum status. The smash I Love It went five-times platinum. They opened thedoor for countless acts from all over Australia through their mentoring, touring and theirannual Initiative for emerging acts.Every studio album from 2006s The Hard Road onwards has debuted at number one - theyeven picked up a number onedebutfor their recent Remix album (Drinking From The SunWalking Under Stars Restrung). Theyveconsistentlyracked up multi-platinum sales in anera whentheindustry is seeing sales dwindleacrossthe board. Theyve also been aconsistent andpowerfullive actthroughoutAustralia, Canada andEurope, and even tookhip hop back to its birthplace in the US.Afterfinishingtheir very first sold outArena Tour in 2016 and supporting Eminem acrossAustralia and New Zealand in February 2019,what do Hilltop Hoods do next?The answer is The Great Expanse.We never stop writing, nods Suffa, Matt Lambert. We did have a conversation where wewere like lets just write as hard as we can and go over the top.We definitely push ourselves creatively more with every record, explains Pressure, akaDaniel Smith.Weve always got beats on hold, adds Barry Francis, better known as Debris.And that time was well spent.We wrote most of it over a two year period, but some of the ideas were even older - like, ahook or a verse here or there. We pulled back on the touring a lot, just the odd festival slot ora month overseas.With album number eight the trio have created another statement of intent.Andif anyonewas thinking that things would be slowing down at this point then you're in for a shock."I feel like the first two thirds of the record are more upbeat than anything we've ever donebefore," Pressure declares."That was deliberate," Suffa confirms, "When we were working on the tracklisting we werelike 'how do we make this make sense, because there was so much light and shade."And hes not wrong. After the curtain-up prelude of the title track it slams into the euphoricopener Into The Abyss and the riff heavy hit 'Leave Me Lonely' - released mere weeksbefore Hottest 100 voting closed, it still reached #24 in Triple J's mighty music democracyand became a platinum accredited commercial radio crossover hit (number one most addedto radio in Australia on release.)The Great Expanse is an album filled with an eclectic group of guests including EccaVandal (who lends her vocals to 'Exit Sign' and 'Be Yourself'), Adrian Eagle (who soulfullydelivers the hook on 'Clark Griswold'), Ruel (who shines on one of the albums morecontemplative tracks 'Fire & Grace'), Timberwolf (crashing through with a powerful andemotive performance on 'Sell It All, Run Away') and Nyssa (a brand new talent who appearson both Be Yourself and 'Here Without You) as well as an appearance from the Hoodsclose friend and ally, Illy.Even with these new flavours, the sound is unmistakably Hoods.If anything,The Great Expanseis exactly what its title suggests: a life gone widescreen.There's pride. There's joy. There's doubt. And there's deep-cut, at times obscure references:what other crew would use the chorus of Ooft to shout out little known Star Wars character,Ponda Baba?On the production side of things, the Hoods have enlisted old friends like One Above, Trials,Cam Bluff and Plutonic Lab, as well as SIXFOUR who helmed last year's ARIA Awardwinning single 'Clark Griswold'. That song, a tongue in cheek tribute to the pleasures andpitfalls of fatherhood, was an early reminder that there's an entire generation who grew upwith the band - even though the people that voted it into the Hottest 100 probably aren'tcontemplating a travel plan, much less a caravan."But I don't think in context you have to having the exact same experience as the personyou're listening to," Suffa points out. "I listen to Jay-Z records that are about how he couldhave bought 20 million dollars worth of property in New York and turned it into 200 million infive years and believe me, I can't relate to that, but I still enjoy the record."Our model has always been the Beastie Boys: they always released Beastie Boys tracks.Whether it was the early 90s, late 90s, mid-2000s, whatever, it sounded like them. But itdidn't ever sound like they repeated themselves."And thats the beauty of The Great Expanse. In this endless cosmos, the Hilltop Hoods havecreated their own grand universe.

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