Get ready festivalgoers – here’s our BEST EVER first artist announcement !!
DAVE MATTHEWS BAND, CROWDED HOUSE, PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND and many more will ensure our 31st Bluesfest Byron Bay rocks next Easter! The 31st annual Byron Bay Bluesfest is taking place from 9th – 13th April 2020 and is set to be the best festival yet! The first of many line up announcements also includes the legend GEORGE BENSON and BRANDI CARLILE, both making their Bluesfest debuts.
BLUESFEST 2020
Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Byron Bay
Thursday 9 April – Monday 13 April 2020
DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
CROWDED HOUSE
PATTI SMITH AND HER BAND
GEORGE BENSON
BRANDI CARLILE
JOHN BUTLER
XAVIER RUDD
THE CAT EMPIRE
MORCHEEBA
JOHN PRINE
JENNY LEWIS
FRANK TURNER
JOHN MAYALL
BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE
THE MARCUS KING BAND
WALTER TROUT
CHRISTONE “KINGFISH” INGRAM
GREENSKY BLUEGRASS
LARKIN POE
THE WAR & TREATY
There is only one type of Dave Matthews Band (DMB) fan and that is a hardcore one! Bluesfest is incredibly excited to have the industry powerhouse play at the 2020 Bluesfest and we know the masses of fans who have been requesting the jam-loving rockers presence at the festival year on year will be too. This will be Dave Matthews Band’s third visit to Bluesfest and if the two earlier visits are anything to go by… it’s going to be more of the same…. A tent full of happy, dancing Bluesfesters. As Peter Noble, Bluesfest Festival Director puts it: “Dave Matthews Band are one of the top grossing, most in demand bands in the world – and finally they are coming back to Bluesfest. This is going to be magical and UNMISSABLE.”
Crowded House return to headline Bluesfest with an EXCLUSIVE AUSTRALIAN PERFORMANCE. Multi – APRA and ARIA award-winners, BRIT award winners and MTV Video Music Award winners their albums and songs have been cornerstones of most of our collections…. and their anthems such as ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, ‘Weather With You’ and ‘Better Be Home Soon’ still resonate with a global audience of all ages. Crowded House is a long standing and much-loved vehicle for the song writing talents of Neil Finn. Formed in Melbourne Australia in 1985 out the ashes of New Zealand’s Split Enz by Neil, Paul Hester and Nick Seymour, and now, 30 + years later, Neil and Nick have been energized and inspired to begin a new chapter in the Crowded House story. The new chapter begins with this exclusive headline appearance at Bluesfest next Easter and there’s only one place to be – front and centre !
Patti Smith and her Band conquered Bluesfest in 2017 … and went on to win the Helpmann Award that year for Best International Contemporary Concert ! Best-selling author, performance poet & visual artist Patti Smith’s list of artistic accomplishments doesn’t end there. She is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, recipient of the Polar Music Prize, a human rights activist and also holds the honour of “Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres” from the French Ministry of Culture. And , just when we thought it was all over… the legend that is Patti Smith calls and says: “I’d like to do it all over again…. I’m ready if you are !” How could we refuse !!! So, with open arms, we welcome back the Godmother of Punk, Patti Smith and her Band, to Bluesfest 2020.
We are so excited to welcome the legend that is George Benson to Bluesfest. Since 1977, George Benson, who is recognised as one of the world’s greatest guitarists, has won 10 Grammy Awards – and has been nominated for an additional 15. His wins include Record of the Year for This Masquerade (1977), Best Pop Instrumental Performance for ‘Breezin” (1977) and ‘Mornin” (2007), Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for ‘On Broadway’ (1979) and ‘Give Me the Night’ (1981), and Best R&B Instrumental Performance for ‘Theme From Good King Bad’ (1977) and ‘Off Broadway’ (1981). Following the success of his Quincy Jones-produced pop album Give Me the Night in 1980, George Benson’s string of pop hits includes ‘Love All the Hurt Away’, ‘Turn Your Love Around’, ‘Inside Love’, ‘Lady Love Me (One More Time)’, and ’20/20′. In 1990, George Benson was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Berklee College of Music. And in 2009 the National Endowment of the Arts recognized him as a Jazz Master, the nation’s highest honour in jazz.
Three-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer and producer Brandi Carlile is currently in the midst of a landmark year following the release of her Grammy Award-winning album, By The Way, I Forgive You. Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings and recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, the album includes ten new songs written by Carlile and longtime collaborators and bandmates Tim and Phil Hanseroth, including ‘The Joke’. Of her breakthrough performance of the song on the 2019 live GRAMMY broadcast, The New York Times proclaimed, “Carlile’s vocals were robust, ragged, full of sneer and hope. On a night curiously light on impressive singing, it was an uncomplicated, genuine, cleansing thrill,” while the Los Angeles Times called it, “triumphant” and Rolling Stone described it as, “breathtaking.”