Narrabri vocalist and guitarist Layten Smith, 17, has played his final local gig for some time.

Layten, the son of Jason and Kelly Smith, will be moving to Wollongong in early March to study a bachelor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Wollongong after completing his HSC last year.

That means Layten will be living 656 kilometres from home and will only travel back to Narrabri occasionally.

The 2019 Narrabri High School captain performed his last gig in front of about 40 people at The Tourist Hotel on Sunday.

The local cover-artist recalled when he first broke onto the Narrabri music scene.

“My grandfather’s friend used to do gigs around here years ago,” said Layten.

“He was playing at the Bowling Club one night and he asked me to get up and play a song or two with him.

“So I just took a guitar and played with him and I guess that was the start, that was a long time ago.

“My first solo probably would have been at the Relay for Life in 2016.

“That was my first proper gig in front of heaps of people.”

Layten compared his most recent to his earlier performances and said there was a big difference.

“It’s changed quite a lot since then,” he said.

“I think my confidence has really increased since I first started, both in performing and not performing.

“Not many people had heard of Layten Smith before, he was just a high school kid who could play a bit of music.

“But now I’ve fine tuned my skills and continued my lessons.

“I’ve always been practising and all of that has added up to being known around Narrabri and having the chance to play these gigs at The Tourist, the Crossroads Hotel, the Golf Club, the RSL, everywhere pretty much.”

After performing over 40 gigs across Narrabri, Layten picked one night which really stood out as a favourite.

“There was one that I did with my high school band, The Dominoes, we all performed at the 70s night at the Golf Club late last year.

“We all just had an absolute blast. That was probably my favourite.”

Layten will begin his university degree on March 2 and will be living on campus at the Koolabong village.

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