Jai Paul Announces Two Shows in Melbourne

August 22, 2023

Jai Paul has locked in two headline shows at 170 Russell in Melbourne later this year. The elusive British songwriter will play at the venue on Monday, 4th, and Tuesday, 5th December – they’re the only Australian dates Paul has locked in.

The shows mark Jai Paul’s first in the country and follow his first run of headline shows earlier this year, which kicked off with his debut live performance at Coachella in April. You can see footage from that set below.

Jai Paul Coachella 2023

Jai Paul has remained an enigmatic presence in music for over a decade. Between 2010 and 2013 Paul released some of the most hyped songs of the era – notably ‘Jasmine’ and ‘BTSTU’, which were picked up by UK radio and embraced by indie blogs; ‘BTSTU’ was even sampled by Drake and Beyoncé.

But in 2013, an album’s worth of material was leaked online by someone who said he was Paul. The real Paul quickly shut down that theory, swiftly denying it was him that leaked the songs. The incident was wounding for Paul, who retreated from public life for many years.

“It [felt] like I had thousands of people not believing me, not trusting me, and also that in some strange way I was responsible for all of it,” Paul wrote in a letter to fans in 2019. “On a personal level, things gradually went south and I had a breakdown of sorts. I was in quite a bad place for some time. I was unable to work and withdrew from life in general.”

Paul returned in 2019 with two new songs, ‘Do You Love Her Now’, and ‘He’. But it would take a few more years before the singer returned in earnest, which he now has. NME recently reported that Paul played an unreleased song called ‘So Long’ at his show in London earlier this year, which certainly suggests more music is on the horizon.