TOP OF THE BUCKET LIST

short of going to Glastonbury or finding a stainless steel–bodied DeLorean sports car and travelling back in time to Woodstock. If you love live music, you absolutely must put this on your bucket list — and please, put it near the top. This bucket-list mustdo, the Byron Bay Blues Festival — more commonly known simply as ‘Bluesfest’ — is, without doubt, the best possible way that I can think of to spend five days. Byron Bay is a very alternative and hippyish little town located on a stunningly beautiful surf beach in New South Wales, just two hours’ drive south of Brisbane. Bluesfest is regarded as one of the top 10 music festivals in the world — even Rolling Stone magazine refers to it as “… one of the world’s great festivals …” — and it’s almost on our doorstep. It’s described as a “blues and roots music festival,” but it covers most genres that people like you and I would like, with event director Peter Noble bringing in acts that perform all kinds of genres to entice a wide and diverse cross-section of music lovers — both, I suspect, to expose a wider audience to his passion for blues music and to make the event economically viable. Around 100 artists — meaning bands or individual musicians — from all over the world attend, most of them doing two one-hour sets over the five days. There are six massive marquees, each holding several thousand people, and artists play in each marquee solidly from noon until after midnight over each of the five days. There’s a 30-minute break between each one-hour set, as the roadies and staff prepare everything for the next set, which gives you time to get to where you want to be next; so, typically, you’ll get to see seven or eight different sets each day. Or you can just float about and see perhaps 100 different world-class musicians from all around the globe. Performers in 2014 that you might have heard of — if you are a younger reader — included John Mayer, Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews Band, John Butler Trio, Michael Franti, Suzanne Vega, Joss Stone, Morcheeba, Passenger, Beth Hart, and KT Tunstall. If, like me, your beard has gone grey and V8 engines and rock music have rooted your hearing, you might have heard of Buddy Guy, Dr John, Steve Earl, Gary Clark Jr, Boz Scaggs, Doobie Brothers, Greg Allman, Jeff Beck, Jimmie Vaughan, Elvis Costello, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Booker T. The greatest moments — or hours — of the festival, however, were the musicians and bands I knew nothing about before they were announced within the Bluesfest schedule, and whom I came away raving about, such as Joanne Shaw Taylor, Devon Allman, North Mississippi Allstars, and Govt Mule. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; the names I’ve listed represent about a quarter of the total number of artists there.

“…IMAYHAVEBECOMEGUILTYOFEXTOLLINGITS VIRTUES…TOSUCHANEXTENTTHATMYFRIENDSAND WORKMATESAREGETTINGSICKOFHEARINGABOUTIT…”

This year, the younger Bluesfest goers were treated to the likes of Counting Crows, Hozier, Paulo Nutini, Train, Donovan Frankenreiter, David Gray, Hunter Hayes, and Ben Harper, while the grey and deaf brigade saw such greats as Keb Mo, Ruthie Foster, Mavis Staples, John Mayall, The Waterboys, Tony Joe White, and Diesel. As with last year, my fondest memories coming away from Bluesfest 2015 are of a handful of names I’d never even heard of before it, including Ash Grunwald, Kristy Lee, Matt Andersen, Delta Rae, Band of Skulls, and Switchfoot. The venue is massive. The first year, it took us about three days to become familiar with where everything was and how everything worked. I don’t know how many people go each year, but I’ve heard the figure of 100,000 bandied about. Despite that, it’s a lovely, friendly, chilled-out environment, and the ‘pushing and shoving’ that exist with some music concerts just doesn’t occur — except, perhaps, a little bit during the late Friday and Saturday night sets, which are intended to attract the younger people. Foodies and shopaholics will love it, too, with more than 50 food stalls with the most amazing array of world foods you could imagine, and incredible shopping right there at the venue, all with a slightly ‘beachy’ or ‘green’ flavour. I’m so buzzed-up over Bluesfest that I think I may have become guilty of extolling its virtues in an almost evangelistic manner, and to such an extent that my friends and workmates are getting sick of hearing about it! It’s close, it’s easy to get to, it’s cheap, and I’ll tell you how to go about it next month. In the meantime, though, just type ‘Byron Bay Bluesfest’ into Google, have a look around the site, and see what you think. Watch some of the video clips on there, and you’ll get a bit of a feel for the event.