The King is coming to town, The King of the Keys that is. Liam Cooper, Australia’s piano man, is bringing his musical spectacular King of the Keys to Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre this April, Thursday the 11th at 7:30pm. 

Liam Cooper comes along with a personal motive, raising awareness for entertainers’ mental health. 

In this dazzling show, you can expect to hear sonnets from the greatest pianists of our time, including favourites by Billy Joel, Elton John, Peter Allen, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Ray Charles and many more. 

“Growing up learning the piano, I’ve always been inspired by the artists in this show – the songwriting, the stories, the sound – it just gets me so excited and it’s a joy to bring that to the stage with some incredibly talented musicians behind me,” Mr Cooper said. 

The King Of The Keys premiered in 2018, but like many artists, Liam felt the pressure and mental load that comes with the job. 

In 2023, Liam had planned a 25 show tour around Australia. Unlike many touring artists, Liam had a background in marketing and took the burden of planning, marketing, budgeting and all the work that goes on behind the scenes completely upon himself. 

“I was fully immersed in preparing for this tour, but I was completely overwhelmed trying to do it on such an intense scale,” Mr Cooper said. “The financial pressures associated with putting on so many shows and the risk of not breaking even, it all became too much. My wife and I had our first baby on the way, and I was still adjusting to performing again after the pandemic.”

The show was pulled ten weeks out from opening night. Despite his personal dismay, Liam believes it was the correct decision to put his mental health first. 

“There was a lot of shame about it. I was so passionate about this tour and so many people were on the project, my band, the venues, those who had bought tickets. To turn around and admit that I couldn’t physically do this, it was really hard to do.” 

In light of his experiences, Liam is donating a portion of ticket sales to Support Act, an Australian charity that provides crisis relief, mental health and wellbeing support to musicians, managers, crew and music workers across all genres of music. 

“Support Act helps people in my industry with mental health,” Liam says. “If that service can help others in my position with the stress and anxiety of producing and promoting live entertainment, or musicians and theatre technicians like mine who lost work because of cancellations, I want to support that.”

The King of The Keys won’t run like your regular show. After celebrating 15 artists, sharing 40 songs and the inspiring stories behind them, the audience gets their say on which artist is crowned King of the Keys and the final song is dedicated to the audience choice. 

Liam's dream is to take the tour to Vegas. He invites everyone to attend the show so they can say “we saw it first” before it hits the Entertainment Capital one day. Find more info at tickets at https://kingofthekeys.com/, for more information about Support Act go to https://supportact.org.au/