Passenger

Luke Thompson added to the bill.

Troubadour Luke Thompson supported Passenger earlier this year to glowing reviews so it made sense that he has been asked back to support Passenger for his sold out show at The Powerstation. Thompson is currently road-testing his new tunes which are being crafted for his third album. He has also recently released the video for his new single 'Walls'

••••

Mike Rosenberg, aka Passenger returns to New Zealand in November - after his sell out shows in March on the back of the Ed Sheeran tour – It’s been a ground breaking year for the acoustic folk troubadour. His current album, All The Little Lights, has traveled around the globe, spawning number 1 singles in thirteen countries (including us here in NZ) with the fragile, breakthrough single, 'Let Her Go', and numerous Top 10 album chart positions across Europe, including Mike's home country of the UK.

From years dedicated to busking the streets of wide-flung towns and cities across the globe, to sudden worldwide recognition and a certified international hit, it’s certainly been a wild and wonderful trip of late for Passenger.

A classic journeyman musician, cut from the same mould as Van Morrison, Neil Young and John Prine, Passenger has the unique ability to move from the humorous to heartbreaking with every song.

••••

For the Brighton, UK born and bred singer songwriter Mike Rosenberg, being independent has proven to be the best road he could have taken. There was a time, back in the early 2000s, when things looked very different. There was a five-piece band called Passenger and the big money label behind it and there was a critically acclaimed debut album, Wicked Man’s Rest, but when the members of that band chose to go their own separate ways in 2007, Rosenberg opted to stick with the Passenger moniker and trust in his music, his voice and his guitar to take him where it would. He took to the streets and discovered not only that the experience enormous fun, but it also proved empowering for the likeable musical troubadour.

Having obviously got a real taste for the busking and the travelling, he thought he’d check out sunnier climes, which is how, in October 2009, Mike first took himself over to Australia where he supported Lior and SydneysidersElana Stone and Brian Campeau, and then played "One Movement", a major music industry-focus festival in Perth. Back in Sydney, he met a neighbour who just happened to be ARIA Award-winning singer songwriter Josh Pyke, and the initial idea that would become Flight Of The Crow formed in his mind.

The album proved the perfect entre into the Australian music scene, not least because Flight Of The Crow saw him joined in the studio by the cream of Australian independent musical talent, including Lior, Kate Miller-Heidke, Boy & Bear and Katie Noonan. By the time Mike felt it was time to return to the UK to launch the album there, he was selling out 500-seater venues across Australia. Before he left however, it was time to record a new album.

As always, there’s a certain element of the youthful Cat Stevens in the tenor of Mike’s voice that tells you the emotions that drive his songs aren’t very far beneath the surface. Recorded again in Sydney, for the new album, All The Little Lights, Mike was joined once again by a core Australian band that included Boy & Bear drummer Tim Hart, jazz bassist Cameron Undy, who also played on Flight Of The Crow, and keyboards player Stu Hunter, from Katie Noonan & The Captains. If there’s a theme to be drawn from the album it’s not just the usual stock-in-trade of the travelling troubadour – love – but the love of life itself.

Meanwhile the Passenger fanbase has been building very nicely, and very much from the ground up, with the busking feeding into the club gigs – all very organic. Among the highlights of this past northern summer’s touring round the UK has been opening for one of UK pop music’s most influential figures, Jools Holland, as well as Ed Sheeran, who just had the #1 album in the UK, and Australian acts the John Butler Trio and Josh Pyke, with whom he co-headlined a UK tour.

It’s been a remarkable journey for Rosenberg, a journey that has inspired some of the finest songwriting you’ll hear anywhere, whether on a street corner, a sweaty rock’n’roll room or a concert stage. Listening to him, whether on record or in performance, you can tell he’s having the time of his life, and it’s all there on his new album, All The Little Lights. And the most exciting this is you just know there’s plenty more to come.