Entertainment
15 June, 2025
‘With a little help from my friends’
A CELEBRATION of Joe Cocker’s greatest hits is fast approaching – the Joe Cocker Express is coming to the Cairns Performing Arts Centre on June 21 and all stops lead to the rock and roll hall of famer and his incredible covers and original tunes.
The Joe Cocker Express: Mad Dog vs The Englishman will bring an epic tribute show going through the stages of Cocker’s music career from his later years to the covers that made him famous earlier in his career.
Hits like ‘With a little help from my friends’, ‘You are so beautiful’, ‘Up where we belong’ and ‘You can leave your hat on’ are all to be expected on this journey.
“We were a group of musicians who were looking at the music of Joe Cocker and we realised that there was niche in the market that wasn’t being filled,” said Rebecca Muino the director of Good Company Entertainment, the creators of The Joe Cocker Express.
“He was one of the greatest cover artists of all time and we really enjoyed going through his music,” she said.
“He had the legendary Woodstock performance with ‘With a little help from my friends’ and he had a great start of his career and afterwards he reinvented himself in the 90s.
“We decided we wanted to do something on him and this year he was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so we’re excited to bring The Joe Cocker Express to Cairns.”
Ms Muino said the show would be split into two parts representing the later years of his career and the start of his career.
“This year’s tour is entitled ‘Mad Dog vs The Englishman’ and it’s actually based off an album that he did,” she said.
“The first half of the show is Joe’s later years, he’s all suited up, it’s his hits from the 90s onwards with ‘You can leave your hat on’ and ‘Unchain my heart’.
“Then in the second part we go back in time to the Woodstock era and the music from this set is real gritty, ‘mad dog’ sound all the way from the Woodstock performance through to the 80s.
“Some songs from that set are, ‘Delta lady’, ‘Hitchcock railway’, ‘The letter’ and of course, ‘With a little help from my friends’.
“Our main singer Chev Wilson has spent a lot of time in Cairns, so it’ll be good to get some of his home crowd at the show and as far as the show goes, we just want to take people on a journey back into time to relive their youth.”
To buy tickets, visit https://bit.ly/3ZRxvJB
