Troy Cassar-Daley was 15 when his uncle and some mates snuck him into a country RSL to see Cold Chisel.
The men handed him a middy of beer in the rough-and-tumble of the pub rock crowd, easing his nerves about being sprung.
"My uncle's mate said, 'Look, just give the kid a little beer and put him in the corner and shut him up'," Cassar-Daley recalls of seeing the band in 1983.
"So I got to hear Chisel and it was just the most amazing thing."
Five years earlier, Cassar-Daley's cousin had brought home the band's first album and together they carefully wrote out and memorised the Khe Sanh chords and lyrics.
Brimming with pride that Chisel keyboardist and main songwriter Don Walker was raised in their hometown of Grafton in northern NSW, Cassar-Daley and his cousin wanted to emulate their idols.
By his early 20s, Cassar-Daley was "running around the bush" with a covers band that opened for solo shows by Chisel guitarist Ian Moss.
Those threads of connection continued to bring Cassar-Daley and Moss together over the following decades.
Moss has become a collaborator and a close friend, who happened to be with the country music artist when he heard the news of both his parents' deaths.
They were songwriting when Cassar-Daley was told his father had taken his own life in 2019 and were on their Together Alone tour when his mother died at home in 2022.
"We have grown a bit as humans and musicians since that tour," Cassar-Daley said.
"It's been nothing but a privilege."
That deep history likely explains the palpable on-stage chemistry between Cassar-Daley and Moss, as they embark on another Together Alone acoustic tour, which has recently been extended into 2027.
They are also releasing an album, Together Alone: Live at the Ulumbarra Theatre, in October, capturing a 2022 performance.
The lead single is their version of 1967 soul song The Dark End of the Street, which has been covered by Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and Dolly Parton.
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The song was the first Moss and Cassar-Daley collaborated on in 2004, honouring the kinds of music they loved as kids.
Hearing the live mixes of Moss singing the last verse - which pleads "oh darling please don't cry" - stopped Cassar-Daley in his tracks.
"I was building a door on the verandah when I was listening to Ian and - fair dinkum - I thought to myself I can either be better when I hear this bloke sing, or maybe I get a day job."
The duo will play an electric set at the Deniliquin Ute Muster in October.
Cassar-Daley, who is also playing at the sold-out Mundi Mundi Bash in Broken Hill later in August, was pleased the organisers could stick it out while other festivals have folded in a difficult economic climate.
It proves live music still has a transformational pull, just as it did at the South Grafton RSL in 1983.
"If there's one thing that I still get a big thrill out of, it's going and listening to some live music," Cassar-Daley said.
"That experience of air moving between the speaker and your body ... just cannot be replaced."
