FOLK, YEAH!
What better way to spend the Picnic Day long weekend than with a tonne of music fans and musicians out at Mt Bundy Station? If this sounds like your jam, then the Top Half Folk Festival (THFF) is for you.
WORDS TIERNEY WHITE
RETURNING FOR ITS 53rd year – making it one of the longest-running regional festivals in the country – Top Half Folk Club’s beloved festival is set to deliver a huge weekend of live music from Friday all the way through to Picnic Day Monday. Nice.
With over 40 music performances, poetry, dance, and workshops – with three stages for the first time – all the while camping in gorgeous Dry season conditions, this year’s THFF is sure to be a hoot.
Top End Folk Club President & Festival Director Louis Boyle-Bryant says they’re proud to showcase local legends amongst some welcome visiting acts, the THFF staying true to traditions folk festivals are loved for.
“There are some acts coming up from interstate, but it’s majority NT musos … It’s so unique. I came into the folk festival scene later in life, I didn’t grow up going to folk festivals, but one of the first things that jumped out at me as a newer attender of folk festivals is how participatory they are,” he says.
“A lot of the time, when you go to a festival or a musical performance, you’re sitting there in a chair in the audience and watch the artist perform – and it’s amazing, you can kind of develop a relationship with the artist, but that’s where it kind of ends.
“With folk festivals, you watch artists perform, and then after they finish, they’re walking around the festival with you, they’re running workshops, you have a chat to them at the bar. It’s got such a community-centric focus. I think that’s what sets them apart for me.”
THFF is mostly volunteer run (including the Festival Director!). Historically held annually on the June long weekend, rotating between the Red Centre and Top End, this year’s Folk Fest is held on the Picnic Day long weekend for the first time, with over 1,000 punters expected to attend.
“We decided to move the date this year, the main reason being that we’re so blessed in the Territory that we have these amazing First Nations cultures on our doorstep. Folklore and folk music is about honouring oral traditions, and music that’s passed down from generation to generation,” Boyle-Bryant says.
“Historically, in Australia, a lot of the time folk festivals have focused on Anglo-Celtic music, but we wanted to expand the offering we had at the Folk Festival, and we couldn’t do that when we were on the same weekend as Barunga. So, we made the decision to move the weekend so we could program more First Nations acts to come and play.”
Highlights include headline acts Leah Flanagan, The Maes, and Eric Avery Marrawuy, plus an entourage of other local legends.
Sally Balfour joins forces with The Milkwood Strings, made up of 30 students from the Milkwood Steiner School on strings. Then there’s Moongaze, and Gleny Rae & The Grass Bazoos from Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Ray Dimakarri Dixon from Elliott, and Darwin’s Tracey Bunn – who launches her latest album on the Sunday – plus a plethora more.
An exciting international addition is Etson Caminha & the Noise Project, making their way across the water from Timor-Leste. Other acts to look out for include Maggie Carty, originally from the west coast of Ireland now based in Melbourne, and her five-piece band, and Tenzin Choegyal, a wonderful Tibetan artist that has toured the world, and now calls Brisbane home.
Campers are welcome to bring their own food and drink, plus there’s licensed bars and food trucks on site if you’re keen to blissfully roll on in. Bringing your own chair is encouraged if you’re keen to spend your weekend in familiar comfort. Limited accommodation is available on site, however, Adelaide River Inn isn’t too far if you’re keen to switch the swag for a roof.
A long weekend of music, musicians, camping, Dry season vibes, and good times? Folk, yeah.
Top Half Folk Festival
WHEN FRI 1 – MON 4 AUG
AT MT BUNDY STATION
COST FREE-$180 | FREE-$120 CAMPING
INFO topendfolkclub.org
