Fans have been asking singer, songwriter and guitarist (actually multi-instrumentalist) Mat McHugh of The Beautiful Girls whether there was any chance of releasing an album on vinyl, and now, to celebrate the first 20 years of the band, he’s done better than that – he’s pulled together his favourite tracks from across all five albums, as well as the debut EP, thrown in an acoustic version of the 2018 single, ‘Beautiful World’. This special compilation titled Seaside Highlife: Greatest Hits, Volume 1 will be available for pre-order on October 24 and released December 5. The dreamy vinyl double-LP will be available for pre-order on album release day, December 5, and will be with fans in the flesh early 2020.
“Seaside Highlife is representative of a particular era of the band,” McHugh explains, “and a stepping-off point for the next one. That’s why we put Volume One in the title. To top it off, the artwork has photos from right across The Beautiful Girls’ career. What I really wanted to do with a ‘best of’ is… I really wanted to create a good introduction to The Beautiful Girls for people and what better than to have it on vinyl? If you’ve never heard of the band and want to hear it at its highest quality and best sound ever, this is the way.”
So, what do you do when you release an album like Seaside Highlife, Greatest Hits Volume I ? You take it to the people, large as life and twice as much fun. “We’re basically going play the album – four sides, double vinyl – all of it, in order but we’ll also rotate some songs off other records every night, which will be really nice. So we’re taking out an expanded six-piece lineup – guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, horn section. We’ve kept it back the past couple of years and done it as a three-piece but a lot of this music has a lot of detail and a lot of layers to it, from We’re Already Gone onwards – there are keyboards and horn sections – so I’m excited to put that whole arc from the beginning to the end of the record, to try and cover that in a live set.”
“In putting this record together there hasn’t been a corner cut, artistically, and I’m approaching the tour in the same way. I want to really celebrate what’s been achieved and have a party before I begin the next volume. It’s gonna be like the Rolling Thunder Revue! It’s just going to be like this travelling circus through Australia in the summertime, which is completely befitting really. It’s exactly the environment for The Beautiful Girls. It’s the perfect way to spend summer.”
The Beautiful Girls will be hitting the road starting in January 2020 all the way through to the end of Feb across the entire country.
TOUR DATES
SAT 04 JAN | BAY CENTRAL TAVERN, PIALBA QLD (18+)
SUN 05 JAN | KINGSCLIFF BEACH HOTEL, KINGSCLIFF NSW (18+)
FRI 10 JAN | PELLY BAR, FRANKSTON VIC (18+)
SAT 11 JAN | TORQUAY HOTEL, TORQUAY VIC (18+)
THU 16 JAN | THE BASEMENT | CANBERRA ACT (18+)
FRI 17 JAN | THE ENTRANCE LEAGUES CLUB, NSW (18+)
SAT 18 JAN | QUEENS WHARF HOTEL, NEWCASTLE NSW (18+)
FRI 24 JAN | THE FACTORY, SYDNEY NSW (18+)
SAT 25 JAN | NARRABEEN RSL, NARRABEEN NSW (18+)
THU 30 JAN | THE RIVER, MARGARET RIVER WA (18+)
FRI 31 JAN | FREO SOCIAL, FREMANTLE WA (18+)
SAT 01 FEB | THE GOV, ADELAIDE SA (18+)
FRI 07 FEB | OTHERWISE, TOWNSVILLE QLD (18+)
SAT 08 FEB | TANKS ARTS CENTRE, CAIRNS QLD (18+)
FRI 14 FEB | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE QLD (18+)
SAT 15 FEB | THE NORTHERN, BYRON BAY NSW (18+)
SUN 16 FEB | COOLANGATTA HOTEL, COOLANGATTA QLD (18+)
FRI 21 FEB | UNI BAR, HOBART TAS (18+)
SAT 22 FEB | CORNER HOTEL, RICHMOND VIC (18+)