Russell Crowe to Bring 'Indoor Garden Party' to New Jersey Performing Arts Center

Actor and musician Russell Crowe will be touring with his Indoor Garden Party to a few venues this summer, including the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC).

In August 2024, Crowe will be playing music and bringing the band back to the United States for the first time since 2012. He will appear at NJPAC on Sunday, August 11 at 7:00 PM. 

An “Indoor Garden Party” is, he says, “an event, a band, a happening. It’s fluid. The personnel changes, but it’s always big. It’s like a festival where I gather people I admire, musicians and storytellers, and we put on a show."

The concept started in 2009 in a pub outside London owned by the chat show legend Michael Parkinson, and it has kept going in a haphazard, ad-lib way ever since. With this configuration, Crowe brings to the foreground The Gentlemen Barbers, whom he has been quietly tinkering with for the last four years.

“There’s an attitude about this band. It’s got a groove. We do a lot of story songs, but we also know we are here to blow out the cobwebs and give the audience a good night,” Russell adds.
 
Grabbing time between the shoots of films like “Unhinged, Thor: Love & Thunder,” “The Greatest Beer Run,” and his latest movie release, “The Pope’s Exorcist,” the band has been gathering, sometimes for weeks at a time, just playing, recording, talking, gelling.
 
The relationships within the band go back 30 years. Dave Kelly (drums) and Stewart Kirwan (trumpet) were members of Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts. They also played with Crowe in The Ordinary Fear of God, which included Stu Hunter (piano) and, in its touring form, Chris Kamzelas (guitar). James Hazelwood (bass) has fit right in and shares friendships within the band that go back decades.
 

About Russell Crowe

He was named Rome’s Ambassador to the World in 2022 and awarded as a “Global Icon” by GQ magazine, but he was also barred entry from a suburban Japanese restaurant in Melbourne for not wearing the correct attire, on a Friday, at lunchtime, in 37° heat; a non-story that became global news. Whether he’s telling the story or people are telling a story about him, life’s always interesting if you’re Russell Crowe.

Crowe says, “I like playing in pubs. It’s what I did growing up. It’s my version of theatre. Even though my day job has a huge claim on my time, I’ve never not played music. My journey to film starts with playing in bands, touring around, releasing records. The band work led to musical theatre (Grease, Rocky Horror Show, Blood Brothers) and miraculously, a film director saw me performing in Blood Brothers and asked me to audition.” 

Crowe has gone on to appear in numerous films, including the 2012 musical adaptation of Les Misérables where he starred alongside Hugh Jackman.