From their early days singing in church beside their mother, Vika and Linda Bull have become one of Australia’s most iconic vocal duos.
They have released eight studio albums over the past 30 years, recorded and toured with Australian artists such as Black Sorrows and Paul Kelly, performed for royalty, been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and delivered one of the most spine-tingling renditions of the national anthem at the 2016 AFL grand final.
Recent years have been particularly fruitful for the Bull sisters. Retrospective collection ‘Akilotoa became their first Australian number one album in 2020, followed up by two number two releases in 2020 and 2021.
In 2022 they received Queen’s Birthday honours and released their insightful joint memoir No Bull, and in 2024 the sisters toured extensively with their band the Bullettes.
This year Vika and Linda have decided to do things a little differently, stripping back their live show to just the two of them and pianist Cameron Bruce (Paul Kelly band) to sing their personal favourites in An Evening with Vika & Linda.
Younger sister Linda said the intimate musical setting of just their two voices accompanied by piano took her back to when she and her sister began singing together as children.
“We didn’t even have a piano to play with, we just sang to each other,” she said.
“When you do that you can really hear what the other person is doing… I really like that. Then when you add piano to it I love how it opens up the song without crowding it too much.
“(Bruce) is quite brilliant, he can play all sorts of genres; Vik and I sing rock, pop, soul, gospel, R&B, jazz a little bit, and he ticks all those boxes.”
Linda said the feedback they had received since beginning to tour the show was that “it’s quite an emotional show”.
“We sing our songs and we tell our stories, so it’s like being in the lounge room and we’re telling you where this song came from, why we’re doing it, why it’s important to us, little stories about our heritage.
“We never walk on stage and just go, you know, this is just going to happen. We’re always working on some sort of magical sound.”
An Evening with Vika & Linda is at Geelong Arts Centre on Sunday, June 9.
