Mahalia Barnes is Jimmy Barnes’ daughter, but the band she wants to talk about is AC/DC.
“Anything Bon Scott, I’m keen on,” the singer says.
“Dad’s a big AC/DC fan, so I’ve listened to a lot over the years. Most of my shows, it tends to be soul and blues, or rock ‘n’ roll more in the Tina Turner sense, but I’ve always wanted the excuse to sing those songs because I really love them.”
Barnes’ talent and her bloodline uniquely qualify her to star in Highway to Hell: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus.
This new show, produced for Wynnum Fringe 2026, recreates a 1983 Aussie rock pub inside the Augathella Spiegeltent on Bay Terrace.
The beer is flowing, the band rocks hard, and the playlist is all the greats: AC/DC, Cold Chisel, INXS, Midnight Oil, Divinyls, The Angels, and Stevie Wright.
Now Jimmy’s music manager, as well as a performer in her own right with Mahalia Barnes and the Soul Mates, Mahalia grew up on tour buses and has met many of the legends whose music she’ll be singing.
“I have spent time with the Midnight Oil guys. We’ve grown up family friends with Mark McEntee from Divinyls – you can’t be a female singer in this country and not revere Chrissy Amphlett.
“My dad was really good friends with Michael Hutchence. Michael was a big part of my childhood. I just remember him being fun and kind and gentle, I feel very privileged to have had him in my life.”
But while she has rarely had the chance to bust out The Power and the Passion, Boys in Town, or Don’t Change, when it comes to the likes of Flame Trees or Cheap Wine, there are few more experienced interlocutors.
“I’m the stunt singer for Cold Chisel when Dad’s busy and can’t rehearse.”
Mahalia Barnes
“Those are the ones that I have sung before because I’m the stunt singer for Cold Chisel when Dad’s busy and can’t rehearse.”
Wait: what?
“You know, the others like to rehearse a lot, and Dad is often quite busy. So on the rare occasion that he’s not been available for a rehearsal, I have been the stunt singer, which has been a lot of fun.”
Highway to Hell is the brainchild of Wynnum Fringe director Tom Oliver, who got the idea during the Edinburgh Festival last year when, on the spur of the moment, he went to see AC/DC at Murrayfield Stadium.
“I was sitting there with 69,999 other people watching Angus Young hop down this catwalk, and all of these Aussie songs were being sung back to this band on the other side of the world,” Oliver says.
“There’s an era of Aussie rock ‘n’ roll that I think is timeless. So in that moment, I was like, ‘I feel a show coming on here’.”
Oliver has teamed Barnes up with Australian Idol winner and You singer Wes Carr, aka Wesley Dean, a highly accomplished performer in both rock and Americana.
Carr co-wrote the 2015 Cold Chisel song Lost, and he first met Mahalia, oddly enough, when both were children. Carr performed as a backup dancer to Barnes’ childhood band, the Tin Lids, who released three albums between 1990 and 1994.
“Which is hilarious,” says Barnes. “I’m really looking forward to getting to do a show with him.”
The two will be backed by a handpicked band featuring members of Thirsty Merc, Pseudo Echo and the Jimmy Barnes Band, along with circus performers Katrina Louise and Melon the Human, who are bringing some eye-catching acrobatics to the performance of the kind you’d never have seen at the Mansfield Tavern in 1983.
Additionally, guitarist Andrea Krakovska is also an aerialist, and will perform riffs while literally hanging from the ceiling.
An onstage bar will allow audience members to get schooners of XXXX before the show.
“I basically want the audience to feel like they’re in the pub the whole time,” Oliver says, “and this is potentially the best pub band they’ve ever seen.”
Now in its seventh year, Wynnum Fringe will feature more than 55 shows spanning music, comedy, circus, cabaret and family entertainment.
Many are taking place inside the Augathella Spiegeltent, a Belgian-made performance tent salvaged from Augathella, central Queensland, and transported back to Brisbane last year.
As for Barnes, while she has enjoyed a front-row seat to the Cold Chisel story, a favourite anecdote involves INXS’s Hutchence.
“I was probably about 12 years old. We were living over in Europe and Michael was dating Helena Christensen, the supermodel. We got to hang out with Michael and Helena, and randomly we went out on a boat in the Riviera – on [Duran Duran lead singer] Simon Le Bon’s boat! A crazy rock star story.
“I’m incredibly privileged to have that history and connection to the Aussie rock world, but unfortunately, we’ve lost a lot of them, and I think that’s even more reason why we need to be celebrating this.”
Highway to Hell: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus plays in the Augathella Spiegeltent, June 25-28. Wynnum Fringe runs June 25-July 12.
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Nick Dent is a Culture Reporter at Brisbane Times, covering arts, entertainment and things to do in the city.Connect via email.
