A 16-year-old guitarist from northern Tasmania has played on The Odeon stage with his favourite band after a handmade sign caught the band’s eye.
Tyler Gibson, from Exeter, travelled to Hobart on the weekend to see Western Australian alternative band Old Mervs.
He took along a sign that said he could play guitar and sing, in the hope of getting up on stage.
Gibson said it took some screaming to get the drummer’s attention. Once it worked, the drummer read the sign and said he would ask “the big boss man”, the band’s singer.
Near the end of the show, the singer called Gibson up to play the song Wait Around, which he said he knew “off by heart”.
“It does not feel real one bit,” Gibson told Pulse.
“It seems like a blur, but it was the best thing I think I’ll ever do in life.”
The teenager said he had listened to Old Mervs for years and the band had shaped his own music around theirs.
He described their sound as emotional but “chiller” and said it “hits home”.
Old Mervs are an Australian independent rock duo made up of David House and Henry Carrington-Jones, who have known each other since they were five.
The pair started performing together in 2017 and settled on the name Old Mervs in 2018, after a childhood pet dog called Mervin.
Their indie surf rock has sold out venues on tours in Australia and overseas and their second EP, Give It Up, debuted at number 33 on the ARIA Albums Chart in November 2023.
Gibson plays lead and rhythm guitar in his own band, Palm Theory.
Asked whether the night had inspired him to keep working on his own music, Gibson said: “100%, yeah.”
