Bellingen, NSW
July 12-15, 2018 :
About 20 minutes inland from Coffs Harbour, on NSW’s Mid North Coast, you’ll find the town of Bellingen. Home to about 3000 people, a café-lined main street, stunning rural-meets-rainforest landscapes and a bourgeoning local festival with a growing reputation for delivering wonderfully diverse line ups, chock full of hidden gems, ripe for discovery. This year marks the Bello Winter Music Festival’s fourth iteration; and my third time making the trip up the M1 from Newcastle to attend.
The festival is fairly unique format, aimed at showing off as much of this beautiful little town as is possible. Rather than operating from at a single spot, like a local park or showground, the festival is spread across eight ticketed venues, all within walking distance, including local bars, cafes and halls, with most acts playing at least twice (some up to six times!) across different venues. There’s action on the streets too with buskers, markets and a roving party bus, a host of ‘festival specials’, pop-up performances at places like the gelato bar, wholefoods store and Japanese restaurant, and workshops on things like fire making and medicinal weeds. The town is bustling with locals and visitors alike, young and old, everyone enjoying the festivities.
And the array of genres here is slightly mindboggling: Indigenous music, Australiana, Atheist-Jewish contemporary, Afro-groove, traditional Japanese, Baltic gypsy folk, Greek urban blues, R&B, soul, hip hop, and more singer-songwriters than you could ever hear in one weekend. There’s so much on offer, you can make this festival what ever you want it to be.
Things kick off in the early evening on the Friday, making it especially stress-free for out-of-towners. You can make the journey; take the afternoon to settle in and get your bearings, before venturing out to take in the acts.
We chose to start our festival weekend at No. 5, a cosy cafe on Church Street who’d host mainly soloists and duos over the course of the weekend. Archer’s bio caught our eye while flicking through the festival program, “kangaroo whisperer and tale teller”. His rollicking set featured original songs recounting his travels around this wide, brown land of ours, peppered with Australian folk classics and bush poetry readings, all delivered with a C.W. Stoneking-esque drawl. An ockerish persona singin’ songs about bushrangers and some bloke named Josh, pissin’ in a gutter in Orange; it was a left-of-centre start to our festival but bloody enjoyable nonetheless.
After Archer, we slipped around the corner to the Memorial Hall, the festival’s largest venue, to catch Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier. With US performer, Justin Townes Earle (son of Steve Earle), cancelling his Australian tour just a few weeks out from the festival, these veterans wound up as the weekend’s top-billed act and delivered just the kind of performance you’d expect from such stalwarts. Polished performance, witty banter, and gushing with praise for Bellingen, the packed crowd adored their laidback set of easy listens inspired by the stories and symbolism of the Jewish faith.
From modern Australiana to contemporary Jewish, US country/bluegrass was next up on the menu, with Lillie Mae performing at one of Bellingen’s most beautiful venues, Cedar Bar. Once a church, this century-old building is now a restaurant, function venue and a stunning space for live music; perfectly suited to the sounds of the American south. Lillie Mae’s set was stellar, and we’d soon hear other artists touting her as the “must see” act of the festival. Her performance focused mainly on tracks from her Third Man-produced record, Forever and Then Some, with homages to the likes of Bill Munro and Waylon Jennings thrown in for good measure. This was the pair’s first show of their Australian tour and you could tell they were having a ball – energetic, warm and pumping out some serious licks on guitar, mandolin and fiddle. Lillie stole audiences’ hearts across the weekend, and even managed to work her way into the sets of at least two other acts, the charmer!
After Lillie’s performance, we popped across the main street to grab a beer at the Federal, a classic country pub in the centre of town, and caught some of China Beach’s set. We enjoyed a wild boogie to the sounds of this funky Melbourne eight-piece. Sax, drum kit plus bongos, and the whole band decked out in matching red outfits, these were some sexy mofos with a sound to match. On the way home, we wandered back past No. 5 and found ourselves drawn in by the vocals of Roesy, an Irish folk performer mid-way through a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sounds of Silence’. We only caught the tail end of his set – a couple of originals and a Tom Waits cover would follow, but what a voice to end the night on.
Saturday was a slower pace. We headed into town early to catch Dashville locals Magpie Diaries playing at the Golf Club. Their breezy, sax-heavy sound, coupled with a friendly onstage banter was the perfect way to ease into the afternoon. Later, we attempted to catch Perch Creek at St Margaret’s Hall at the top of town, but we told the venue was at capacity. This was around the time Justin Townes Earle should have been kicking off at the Memorial Hall and apparently the change in program has sent folks spilling into other venues. We ended up watching them the next day at the Federal – they were awesome. But the unexpected change in schedule led us to another surprise discovery of the weekend in Tiana Khasi. This soulful, Brissy-based songstress had the crowd at the Federal grooving on the dancefloor to some seriously lush tunes. We decided to stick around to watch Hello Tut Tut. They were the talk of the festival last year and did not disappoint this time around. Heady, funky, Russian-inspired gypsy folk that’s heavy on the fiddle and accordion; what’s not to love?
Having had our fill of the Baltic, we headed back to Cedar Bar to catch Bellingen native and festival patron, Jack Carty, and Gus Gardiner, play new songs from their new record Hospital Hill along with tracks from Jack’s solo albums. Jack played at the Memorial Hall on Friday night with a string quartet, but tonight it was just Gus on cello and Jack on guitar. This intimate space was so well suited to the pair; the hum of the strings and Jack’s confident vocals filled the high ceilings – very special.
Sunday at St Margaret’s started with a special gospel show courtesy of local bluegrass band, High Lonesome. Featuring renditions of joyous and “God-fearing” classics like ‘Workin’ on a Building’, ‘I Saw the Light’ and ‘Angel Band’, plus an appearance from Lillie Mae, the good Christians who started their Sunday early definitely reaped the rewards.
Sunday’s highlight was another festival drawcard, Lior, performing at the Memorial Hall. Just him and a guitar for the majority of the performance, occasionally accompanied by touring partner, Domini Forster, this performance really showcased Lior’s exquisite vocals, shining especially on ‘Grandfather’, ‘Bedouin Song’ and during a cover of ‘Satisfied Mind’. The set also featured a lot of promising new material and first performances of tracks from his upcoming record, to be titled Between You and Me, including ‘Where Will We Be’ and ‘Apple Tree’. This was an entrancing performance and testament to Lior’s lasting acclaim.
Following Lior, the masses moved next door to Diggers for William Crighton. I’d heard a lot about Will Crighton, but this was my first time seeing a set from him and, my God, did he live up to the hype. Dark, moody rock ‘n’ roll, tight onstage performance, complete with accompanying visuals. This was one slick performance and the people were loving it. The vibe was rapturous. There were women dancing on tables and you could barely move the crowd was packed in so tight. ‘Devils Tongue’ and ‘Fire in the Empire’ off Empire, Will’s latest release, were huge standouts but really there wasn’t a moment of this set that wasn’t electric.
Floating out of Diggers and across to the Bellingen Brewery, we managed to catch another well talked about band of the weekend, The Morrisons. The stage at the Brewery is actually a mezzanine above the bar. The venue itself doesn’t seat many but the high-perched stage is visible from outside, so a bunch of people huddled around to take in the folky sounds. There were dance-along hoedowns and soothing harmonies and yes, more Lillie Mae. A wonderful end to the weekend.
This festival showcases so much that’s great about Bellingen – it’s creative community, the unique venues and, of course, the people who make it. As you stroll the streets discovering new music, you’re discovering more and more of this magical town. Bellingen is well worth a visit, especially at festival time, and we’ll definitely be back.
Reviewer : Amelia Parrott
Photographers : Bruce Jacups images, Lyn McCarthy, and the trees photography, Greyrose Photographics, Alex Clarke, Kurt Peterson
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