BLUESFEST’S
2nd Artist Announcement
for 2021

– The festival’s first
All Australian
announcement:

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Our First 
All-Australian 
Announcement:

TASH SULTANA
ZIGGY ALBERTS
KEV CARMODY
IAN MOSS
HIATUS KAIYOTE
RUSSELL MORRIS
BRIGGS
KIM CHURCHILL
MAMA KIN SPENDER
ALL OUR EXES LIVE IN TEXAS

And many more to be announced!

Get your tickets
on-sale now

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2021 Bluesfest can’t wait until next Easter on April 1 – 5th at the beautiful green Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm located 10 minutes north of Byron Bay.

Bluesfest continues to make history with its second Artist Announcement for 2021 – It is the festival’s first ever All Australian announcement and it’s something to sing about.

Adding to the already impressive line up are some of Australia’s greatest artists including TASH SULTANA and ZIGGY ALBERTS, who are both playing on Easter Saturday, as well as National Treasure, KEV CARMODY to name a few.

Bluesfest will be Tash Sultana’s only East Coast festival play, and will bring in the new band, “I’ve got to a point where the music I’ve written is beyond the capabilities of looping so I’ve decided to get a backing band to play the written parts live and I’m looking forward to performing them at Bluesfest next Easter.” says Tash Sultana.

Ziggy Alberts will be playing all new material he has been creating in lockdown.

“Stoked to be back at Bluesfest 2021! I love this festival and we had such a great time back in 2018. I’m looking forward to coming out strong after some time away from touring. See ya’ll there!” says Ziggy Alberts.

Kev Carmody will show why he is regarded as a National Treasure. His new album, ‘Cannot Buy My Soul’ features guest appearances by Jimmy Barnes, Kasey Chambers, John Butler, The Waifs, Tex Perkins, Troy Cassar-Daley and lots more -this could be one hell of a jam!!

When Blues legends RUSSELL MORRIS and IAN MOSS take to the stage the Bluesfest crowd will roar.

IAN MOSS, best known as a founding member of Cold Chisel and now widely regarded as one of the best Blues guitarists in Australia, is scheduled to perform directly before Jimmy Barnes on Easter Sunday.

“We are going to tear the place apart. They’ll be a lot of great Australian bands and artists hitting those stages.” says Jimmy Barnes

Rock veteran and the original “real thing” RUSSELL MORRIS spectacularly re-launched his career when he released his Blues trilogy; which features the Platinum selling ‘Shark Mouth’, the ARIA nominated ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ and the ARIA Award winner ‘Red Dirt – Red Heart’ [2012-2018]. Russell will play tracks from his latest album ‘Black and Blue Heart’ and this is one Blues banga of a show that is sure to be packed out.

Yorta Yorta man BRIGGS is the most powerful rapper in the country, HIATUS KAIYOTE is selling out 2000 seater venues and KIM CHURCHILL not only a current triple j favourite, he is also the most successful Bluesfest Busking competition winner who has now gone on to achieve national recognition, a record label and is touring nationally. Add MAMA KIN SPENDER and ALL OUR EXES LIVE IN TEXAS and the line-up is unquestionably a “top-shelf’ reflection of Australia’s best.

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Commenting on the announcement Festival Director, Peter Noble OAM says “There’s a number of all Australian line up announcements to come that includes ‘real’ headliners, Indigenous artists and Blues n Roots artists. We are setting ourselves up to put on another great Bluesfest albeit in a brand new way. There will be challenges, and we expect to be presenting a festival with a lower capacity and potentially outdoors in order to have a safe event. It is sad for us to see that a number of festivals will not go ahead. However, we are working with Government to present a safe event and be part of the return of ‘live’ music in this country. Whilst it is disheartening to hear that Woodford and Port Fairy Folk Festivals feel that the challenge of presenting is something they don’t want to take on right now, and which is totally understandable, it doesn’t mean that events cannot return, and I believe it is important for Bluesfest to be a part of that return and to help lead the way.”

Bluesfest is in regular communications with Government regarding the Bluesfest COVID-19 Safety Plan that has been lodged. Bluesfest look forward to updating everyone very soon with more information regarding their Safety Plan for a COVID-19 safe Bluesfest experience.

This is the first ANNOUNCEMENT OF MAJOR all Australian artists with more to come from Bluesfest.

All ticket types and Add-Ons are on-sale now. 

For further information on the line-up or artists please see here.

Bluesfest 2021
is being held from
1 – 5 April 2021.
Tickets are on sale now
via Moshtix.

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About Bluesfest Byron Bay  : 

Showcasing music from around the world every Easter in Byron Bay, Bluesfest is Australia’s most awarded music festival. From the humble beginnings in 1990 as a four-day event, the festival now takes place over five days, with over 200 performances from International and local artists in front of a colourful crowd of up to 150,000 patrons across five stages on the beautiful green Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm. Located just 10 minutes north of Byron Bay, NSW, Australia, Bluesfest is well situated and surrounded by the charming village of Mullumbimby and the beach towns of Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads. Best festival vibes ever! 

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SNAPSHOT ARTIST
BIOGRAPHIES:

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Press Shots 2020 by Dara Munnis. @daramunnis

Tash Sultana:

Tash Sultana is an explosive global producer and artist who has commanded attention worldwide since their homemade videos went viral on YouTube. This dynamic muso plays over 12 instruments (guitar, bass, drums/ percussion, piano/ keyboard/ synth/, oud, trumpet, saxophone, flutes, panpipes, sitar, harmonica, beat production) with guitar as their main love, a self-trained vocal that reaches over a 7 key range and a live show that needs to be seen to be believed. In under 2 years Tash was soon selling out major arenas, with a string of sold out world tours and headlining the world’s biggest festivals – no mean feat for an artist who just a year before was recording songs on a ‘go pro’ in a bedroom back in 2016. After years of mastering their solo set, Tash Sultana is bringing in the addition of a 3-piece band to help bring to life songs that will appear on their next album ‘Terra Firma’ and onstage at 2021 Bluesfest. Tash Sultana previously played Bluesfest in 2018 and 2019.

Ziggy Alberts:

Ziggy Alberts will perform all his new material created during lockdown. Ziggy is a singer-songwriter who gives new meaning to the term independent artist. At only 25 years old he has released five records, founded his own label, Commonfolk Records, played sold-out tours across the world, and his music has effortlessly amassed millions of listeners worldwide. Musically, Ziggy’s folk-hewn sound has raised comparisons to the likes of early Ben Howard or Jack Johnson. Like these contemporaries, Ziggy creates honest and personal music that explore his relationships both with others and the planet – a subject close to Ziggy’s heart as a surfer and environmental enthusiast. Ziggy Alberts played over 110 shows in 2019 on his ‘Laps Around The Sun World Tour’. The mammoth tour saw him play to fans across Europe, United Kingdom and North America, all before returning home to Australia in December to play his biggest sold-out headline tour to date.

Kev Carmody

Kev Carmody is a National Treasure. He is one of Australia’s pre-eminent singer-songwriters, a wordsmith whose often politically charged and socially-aware lyrics early in his career found him described as “Australia’s black Bob Dylan”. Of Aboriginal and Irish heritage, both cultures famous for oral histories in song, Kev was born to be a storyteller. His best-known composition (with Paul Kelly) is ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’, based on the story of The Gurindji Strike and Vincent Lingiari as part of the struggle for Indigenous land rights and reconciliation. Kev began writing songs in the mid 1960’s but did not record his first album until 1987.  This week Kev re-releases his seminal album, ‘Cannot Buy My Soul’ which features collaborations with some of this country’s best artists; many of which are performing this year at Bluesfest.

Ian Moss

Ian Moss made his Bluesfest debut in 2015 – this highly anticipated performance will be his second visit to the Bluesfest stage. Respected as one of Australia’s iconic musicians he is widely regarded as one of the best blues guitarists in Australia. Ian Moss delivers an unforgettable sound – not only as a telling soloist on guitar but especially with his silken voice, ringing with clarity and resonating with pure soul. While primarily recognised as an axeman of tenacity and sweet melodic sensibility, Ian’s distinctive vocal is the essential signature of his soulful, bluesy muse – as it has been since his first tentative foray into music during the early 1970s. Moss has released six incredible and dynamic studio albums – The #1 and multi-platinum, ‘Matchbook’, ‘Worlds Away’, ‘Petrolhead’, ‘Let’s all Get Together’, ‘Soul on West 53rd’ and the self-titled ‘Ian Moss’. Ian will be playing directly before Jimmy Barnes on Easter Sunday.

Hiatus Kaiyote

Self-termed ‘future soul’ band, Hiatus Kaiyote — akin to a progressive neo-soul group with a little left-of-centre, hip-hop production — formed in Melbourne, Australia in 2011. Fronted by singer, songwriter, and guitarist Nai Palm, the band also features bassist Paul Bender, drummer Perrin Moss, and keyboardist Simon Mavin (also of the Bamboos). The band self-released their short debut album, ‘Tawk Tomahawk’, in 2012, and gradually won support from a wide swathe of taste-making DJs (such as Gilles Peterson) and fellow artists (beginning with Taylor McFerrin and later including Questlove and Erykah Badu). One of the most-exciting and dynamic live bands, their music has been sampled by Beyonce & Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson Paak and Drake and has earned them a Grammy-award nomination.

Russell Morris

With a staggering 50 year career and counting, Russell Morris is one of Australia’s most enduring singers. A major pop star in the late ’60s, he went on to become one of the country’s first singer-songwriters. Morris’ career started in September 1966 with the formation of the Melbourne group Somebody’s Image, which rose to prominence with a local hit version of the Joe South song “Hush”. Russell’s successful Blues trilogy spans the years 2012 – 2018 and spectacularly re-launched his career. The trilogy features the Platinum selling  ‘Shark Mouth’, the ARIA nominated ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ and the ARIA Award winning ‘Red Dirt – Red Heart’.  His 2019 current release ‘Black and Blue Heart’ was produced by Nick DiDia and Bernard Fanning and features a co-write with Eddie Rayner [Split Enz].

Briggs

From mattress-proofed recording studios in Melbourne, to LA’s most esteemed comedy writing rooms, Briggs has affirmed himself as one of the country’s most talented all-rounders in both music, TV and now publishing. Born and raised in the floodplains of Victoria’s North East rivers, In less than a decade Briggs has taken his hometown of Shepparton to the world -and in turn, inspiring a whole generation of black excellence in the process. Starting with a hip hop career that has seen him tour alongside the likes KRS-ONE, Ice T, 50 Cent, Hilltop Hoods and Paul Kelly – it soon became clear his penmanship also translated to the screen. This second wind as a TV writer had him script and star in the likes of ‘Black Comedy’, ‘The Other Guy’, ‘Cleverman’, and Charlie Pickering’s ‘The Weekly’. As founder and director of his own Indigenous hip hop record label, Bad Apples Music, Briggs’s forthcoming EP ‘Always Was’ includes the first single off the rank ‘Extra Extra’ and the most recent single ‘Go To War’ features the smooth voice of friend and collaborator Thelma Plum as they explore the idea of what it means to write from a place of having no recourse.

Kim Churchill

Kim Churchill smashed his ‘Like A Version’ out on ‘triple j’ last Friday. His rendition of Julia Jacklin’s  – ‘Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You’ will go down as one of ‘LAV’ best covers. See it HERE. A traveller as much as an artist, Kim Churchill has lived on the road for years, but it was no longer enough just to pass through; for Kim it was time to showcase that world in his songs. ‘After The Sun’, the warm, loping first single from a new project where each song taps into the people and environments of some of his favourite parts of the world, is Kim showing the value of a new way of thinking, of writing and of living. Kim is a Bluesfest favourite and former winner of the Bluesfest Busking Competition. This performance will mark his seventh since he debuted in 2010. We are proud to list him in our “Discovery Artist” success stories.

Mama Kin Spender

ARIA nominated Mama Kin Spender will bring their rollicking, yet raw, dynamic duo of howling harmonies and primal rhythm to Bluesfest for 2021. This collaboration is a lightning bolt moment between two long-time friends, co-writers and mischief-makers: Mama Kin and Tommy Spender. Both artists in their own right, this pairing delivers something greater than the sum of their parts. Showcasing their unique style of community engagement, they will be joined by a local choir of many, Mullumbimby’s own ‘Midnight Choir’, to bring a gospel landscape to their unique and magnetic performance.

This community minded inclusion and approach has been a festival favourite from WOMAD to Woodford, Clonakilty (Ireland) to Kāpiti (New Zealand), Winnipeg to Saskatoon (Canada), Darwin Festival to Perth International Arts Festival. Their debut album ‘Golden Magnetic’, and this year’s release of their new EP ‘Are You Listening?’ were enthusiastically received, garnering nominations for an ARIA Award for Best Blues and Roots Album, and an NLMA award, and winning a WAM award.

All Our Exes Live In Texas.

ARIA Award winning indie-folk band, All Our Exes Live in Texas will bring their mandolin, ukulele, accordion and guitar and their 4 piece harmonies back to the Bluesfest stage.  A powerhouse of musical prowess, they are known as much for their side-splitting banter and feminist politics as their devastatingly beautiful harmonies. With a top 10 debut album and a reputation as festival favourites, they’ve had multiple sell out tours around Australia and are carving up the USA and UK. Their captivating live show has earned them support slots for The Backstreet Boys, Passenger, Nathaniel Rateliff, Midnight Oil and more.

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The Bluesfest 2021
Line-up So far:

BON IVER | TASH SULTANA | JIMMY BARNES
GEORGE BENSON | PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND
ZIGGY ALBERTS| THE TESKEY BROTHERS
JOHN BUTLER | XAVIER RUDD | THE CAT EMPIRE
KEV CARMODY | TROY CASSAR-DALEY | BRIGGS
IAN MOSS | RUSSELL MORRIS
KOOL & THE GANG | THE GIPSY KINGS
KASEY CHAMBERS | THE WAIFS | HIATUS KAIYOTE
MICHAEL FRANTI & SPEARHEAD
WEDDINGS PARTIES ANYTHING | NATHAN CAVALERI
LP | MORCHEEBA | THE BLACK SORROWS
MELBOURNE SKA ORCHESTRA  | CHAIN | BACKSLIDERS
TORI KELLY | BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE
THE WAILERS PERFORM SONGS FROM ‘LEGEND’
JIMMIE VAUGHAN | JOHN MAYALL
TROMBONE SHORTY & ORLEANS AVENUE
THE MARCUS KING BAND | CHRISTONE ‘KINGFISH’ INGRAM
LARKIN POE | HARTS PLAYS HENDRIX  | ASH GRUNWALD
KIM CHURCHILL | MAMA KIN SPENDER
WALTER TROUT | THE BAMBOOS
ALL OUR EXES LIVE IN TEXAS | THE WAR & TREATY
CORY HENRY & THE FUNK APOSTLES
MICK THOMAS’ ROVING COMMISSION | DAMI IM
PIERCE BROTHERS | EMILY WURRAMARA
ROSHANI  | RAY BEADLE | HENRY WAGONS
HUSSY HICKS | PACEY, KING & DOLEY
DANIEL CHAMPAGNE | LITTLE GEORGIA
BUSKING COMPETITION & WINNERS
THE AUSTRALIAN AMERICANA MUSIC HONOURS

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AMNPLIFY – DB

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