The saxophone line under Cold Chisel's "Rising Sun," "Saturday Night" and "My Baby" belonged, night after night on stage, to Andy Bickers. The New Zealand-born musician, who built one of the busiest careers among Australian rock's touring and session saxophonists, died on July 10, 2026. He was 56.

Bickers grew up in Wellington, where he worked the city's rock club circuit through the 1980s before crossing the Tasman Sea, first to Melbourne and then to Sydney. His break came when he was hired into Jimmy Barnes' touring band, a job that put him in front of the country's biggest rock audiences and marked him as a player other artists wanted on their own stages. By the early 2000s he had settled into Cold Chisel's live lineup, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Cold Chisel called him, in the statement announcing his death, its "sax player of more than 30 years," and singled out his onstage contribution to "Rising Sun," "Saturday Night" and "My Baby" as work that would be sorely missed, according to Billboard. "Andy was our brother: an incredible musician and a great person to be out on the road or out on the town with," the band said.

His work reached well beyond one band. Bickers toured with Midnight Oil, Silverchair, the Eagles and Don Henley, and recorded or performed with You Am I, the Presets, Hoodoo Gurus, Tony Hadley and Vika and Linda, according to Rolling Stone Australia. His saxophone is on Hoodoo Gurus' 2004 album "Mach Schau" and on Midnight Oil's last two studio records, "The Makarrata Project" and "Resist," Noise11 reported. On Diesel's 2009 record "Project Blues: Saturday Suffering Fools" he did more than play: he wrote the horn arrangements and conducted the brass section himself. He also recorded with the band Little Red on its 2010 album "Midnight Remember," and in November 2023 he took the stage at Mushroom 50 Live, the all star concert marking 50 years of Mushroom Records at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena.

Singer-songwriter Richard Clapton, who had Bickers on saxophone for nearly all 16 of his State Theatre concerts in Sydney, said the song "Wintertime in Amsterdam" would not sound the same without him. "The song is not going to be quite the same this year," Clapton said.

Barnes, who gave Bickers his start touring Australia, called him a friend as much as a collaborator. "We were friends not only because he was a great player, but he was funny, intelligent, and most importantly, he was a good man," Barnes said. Icehouse frontman Iva Davies, whose band had shared a stage with Bickers only weeks before his death, credited him with shaping other musicians as much as his own playing did: "Andy was a consummate musician as attested by the great array of people he performed and collaborated with along with the many he mentored and inspired." Midnight Oil's Jim Moginie remembered him simply as dependable: "Andy would deliver every time, someone you could depend on completely."

He is survived by his wife, Lisa, and son, Rudy.

What persists is the sound. It is on "Mach Schau," on "The Makarrata Project" and "Resist," on "Project Blues: Saturday Suffering Fools," on "Midnight Remember," and in the shape of a Cold Chisel show that, for more than two decades, was built around his horn being there to fill it. Every act he backed now plays those same songs with a different player standing where he stood.