The power of ‘search’ has delivered Icehouse and its lead singer, Iva Davies, a slew of young fans to swell its concert audiences. Iva tells Cityscape how hard it is to pick a set list to please everyone, and his favourite thing about popping over the ditch for a visit.

Are you enjoying being back on the road with Icehouse? Indeed. We’re in a rather luxurious position in that we don’t play grinding, demanding schedules now so every time we play it’s a bit of a novelty. I was the one who initiated the discussions about playing in New Zealand. We always have a great time in New Zealand, it’s such a beautiful place.

No doubt things are a bit more restrained on tour this time around? We were never a completely mad band although I must say that at one point on one of our tours there was an all-points broadcast for us for both the North and South Island and we were banned from staying in any hotel in New Zealand until the record company managed to negotiate a way out.

Is it a greatest hits concert or a mix of old and new? It’s always tricky to pick a set and that’s because we are blessed by having more hit songs than we have time to perform, which is a great position to be in but inevitably somebody’s going to miss out on something they really wanted to hear. The set list is going to be loaded fairly heavily with things that people would like to hear because they have been highlights. But on the other hand there are surprises in that there are certain songs that work better as live songs than they did as recorded songs. And they may not be songs that had a high profile such as top five hits or whatever but they work particularly well in a live show environment and the band love playing them.

And what about the fans – a mix of old and new? Indeed they are in what I find an incredibly surprising way. I guess it’s best typified by a story from about 2011 – we started playing again in 2010 or so and we hadn’t played for 16 years. There was this festival in Sydney called Homebake and they got 20,000 to 30,000 people in the audience. We were approached by the promoter and he said he would like us to play at Homebake and he would like us to play our first album, Icehouse, and by the way most of the audience are in their 20s. I was in absolute shock and I said to this promoter ‘Are you completely insane? This is going to die a thousand deaths because that album is 35, nearly 40 years old and the audience you’re talking about won’t even have been born when that album was released.’ We went ahead and played and I approached the stage with fear and loathing because I thought it was a formula for disaster. Anyway about three songs in, Steve the bass player said to me ‘Look at the front row’. And the front row was full of 18-year-olds singing every single word. It's the power of the internet and the way in which 20-year-olds these days go looking for music.

Do you have any favourite spots in New Zealand that you are looking to visit? My favourite thing about visiting New Zealand is that there are surprises every time, and my expectation is of that being the case again. I remember one time we played outside Queenstown to about 17,000 people and it was overcast and drizzly but we had a fantastic time. Then our last concert on that tour we performed in blazing heat.

Selwyn Sounds,
Lincoln Event Centre,
March 7
icehouse-ivadavies.com