Fat Freddy’s Dropping by
First headline acts: Melissa Etheridge (US), Samantha Fish & Jesse Dayton (US), Ana Popovic (US), Eric Bibb (US) and Lloyd Spiegel.
Kurrawa Park:
Fat Freddy’s Drop, Tijuana Cartel and BoomChild
Blues on Broadbeach will debut a special tickets only program featuring popular Kiwi genre-bending band Fat Freddy’s Drop.
This year the traditionally free four-day festival will introduce the ‘Kurrawa Park Sunday Ticket’ with ticket holders to get exclusive access to Fat Freddy’s Drop’s only Australian show this year.
Gold Coast-based artists Tijuana Cartel and electronic creatives BoomChild have also been announced for the exclusive show. Fat Freddy’s Drop member and saxophonist Scott ‘Chopper’ Towers said fans attending the Broadbeach festival will be among some of the first in the world to hear some new unreleased tunes.
“It’s going to be really exciting for us, Broadbeach will be among the first to hear some of that new music,” Towers said. “Part of that will be exploring how to present these new songs to live audiences which will be exciting for us.”
Towers said with the group now “deep in the writing and recording phase”, the Broadbeach show will be among a handful of shows planned for this year.
“We get a lot of invitations to do shows everywhere and we thought ‘if we could only do one, which one do we want to do?’ and Blues on Broadbeach ended up at the top,” he said.
Festival Director Mark Duckworth said the latest addition was about “elevating” the staple music festival.
“This is a new way for us to enhance the experience and further elevate the festival and to give us more selection of artists especially international artists,” he said.
“This is a direction we’ve been wanting to go in for a number of years now. By offering a special ticketed experience featuring more incredible acts, this year we are stoked to showcase one of the world’s best reggae and soul live acts New Zealand’s Fat Freddy’s Drop.”
Mr Duckworth said the festival is expected to draw fans from across the country and internationally. Blues on Broadbeach will kick off May 16 with a number of free nonticketed shows for music lovers to enjoy.
The Kurrawa Park Sunday Ticket will be on sale from 9am Wednesday February 28, $119 to $189. The Kurrawa Park ticketed event will wrap up the festival on May 19.