Older acts are headlining American music festivals, who would we love to see do the same Down Under?

WITH Billy Joel, AC/DC and Steely Dan now headlining hip American festivals, we’ve picked the heritage acts that could do the same in Australia.

SOMETHING strange is happening in the world of American music festivals — respect for our musical elders.

With fewer and fewer modern bands popular enough to headline festivals, there’s been a swag of ‘heritage’ acts added to some of the coolest festivals in America, presumably to lure some older fans and thrill some younger ones with good taste.

AC/DC will headline Coachella this year, with prog rockers Steely Dan also on the line-up alongside the likes of Jack White, FKA Twigs and David Guetta.

Billy Joel is the surprise get of Tennessee’s Bonarro line-up, ahead of Mumford and Sons, Robert Plant and Kendrick Lamar.

‘Weird Al’ Yankovic will bring the chuckles to the Governor’s Ball in New York, joining Bjork, Lana Del Rey and the Black Keys.

WEIRD AL: Spoofs Pharrell Williams’ song Happy

AC/DC: Drummer phil Rudd wants his job back with the band

So will this be a trend in Australia in an era where festivals are tending to skew younger and younger and catering to the Triple J audience? The Harvest Festival, aimed at an older crowd who weren’t keen on being bumped by munted punters, was axed due to poor sales. Some older ‘alternative’ acts have been left playing to embarrassingly small crowds at festivals populated by people unaware of their history or prestige.

While its future is still in limbo The Big Day Out featured older acts like Neil Young, Iggy Pop, but they were on the alternative tip. In the party ranks The Village People are the ironic addition to hipster festival Golden Plains in Victoria this year while Salt`n’Pepa thrilled `90s babies at the Falls Festivals this past New Years.

And let us not forget the great (late?) Homebake festival, who added Icehouse, Divinyls, Crowded House, The Church and Hoodoo Gurus to their list of local heroes.

That got us to thinking of some fantasy iconic superstar acts who could slot into some of Australia’s best festivals. Indulge us.

Elder statesman ... Could Farnsey rock the Falls? Not a problem.

JOHN FARNHAM DOES THE FALLS

Can you imagine? It’s just turned midnight and John Farnham launches into the national anthem You’re the Voice. As his performance with Coldplay at the Sound Relief concert demonstrated, love for Farnsey knows no age limits. The young Falls crowd don’t need the full Farnham set, just an hour of power — Two Strong Hearts, That’s Freedom, Pressure Down, Chain Reaction, Age of Reason and of course his version of AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock and Roll, to make the best use of those bagpipe players who’ll be wolfing down the rider backstage.

Bonus for Farnsey: it’ll be the first concert Farnsey plays where precisely nobody even knows what Sadie the Cleaning Lady is, let alone shouting out to hear it played.

PAUL MCCARTNEY DOES BLUESFEST

Every promoter has tried to lure the rogue Beatle down to Australia over the past two decades, but nothing has worked. Not, presumably, even, buckets of money and promises of huge crowds. We’ve even had Ringo here, but no Macca since 1993. Paul’s played Coachella in the past, so he’s no stranger to the vagaries of the music festival. And he’s touring as much as ever, constantly visiting America, South America and Japan, just bypassing this part of the world each time. So howsabout Bluesfest in Byron Bay, with an older crowd who’ll appreciate his new material as well as getting a barrage of hits that soundtracked multiple generations. And what a coup.

Bonus for Macca: he can do sideshows, capitalising on the fact that this week he scored his first Australian Top 10 hit (courtesy, randomly, Kanye West) since 1984’s underrated No More Lonely Nights. Imagine all the Kanye fans who’ll be wondering who this dude playing enormodomes is.

Lady in red ... Busting out a greatest hits set to dance music lovers? Yeah, I can manage that.

KYLIE MINOGUE DOES FUTURE MUSIC FESTIVAL

Future have dabbled with music from all genres and decades in the past. New Order and Stone Roses tragically played to just a handful of people while someone with a laptop and light show next door was stealing all the attention. Future also likes pop music — they hit gold with Ke$ha a few years ago, and hit rust with Jessie J and Rita Ora a few years later. They should have got Miley Cyrus. They’ve tried stunt slots (Psy) and Pharrell worked last year with his hit medley. But put an actual pop superstar on there in Kylie, doing a greatest hits show, with a live band and show the Future crowd what stage performance really means, beyond what looks like someone checking their emails between fist pumping. Kylie was meant to play Glastonbury once and knows a thing or two about dance music and getting people moving.

Bonus for Kylie: minimal responsibility, maximum glory.

Legends ... Let there be rock — AC/DC could shake Soundwave to its foundations.

AC/DC DOES SOUNDWAVE

OK now AC/DC have added festival act to the repertoire, they’re fair game. Presumably Soundwave have sniffed around them in the past, and of course they can do their own shows in Australia, thanks very much. But imagine Australia’s biggest rock band headlining Australia’s biggest rock festival? Naturally it won’t happen, but if it did, what other festival could you see them at?

Bonus for AC/DC: think of all those T-shirts and devils horns they’ll sell and all the bands on the bill who’ll be bowing down to them.

JIMMY BARNES DOES GROOVIN’ THE MOO

Work with us here. Similar to Farnsey, the kids who go to GTM have grown up with Barnsey. And their parents (or, shudder, grandparents) probably inserted Barnsey or Cold Chisel songs into their memory banks via musical osmosis. Mr Barnes has enough cross-generational anthems (Working Class Man, No Second Prize, Flame Trees, Khe Sanh, You Got Nothin’ I Want) to resonate with the kids, plus the festivals take place in regional areas — that’s Barnsey’s heartland, y’all. And just his name has that buzz factor that’d get people there for curiosity factor. He’ll take care of the rest. And it’s not a festival, but can we finally have Cold Chisel doing the AFL Grand Final this year? Cheers.

Bonus for Barnsey: potential converts who’d possible never get to a Barnsey concert otherwise.

Popular act .. Elton John could be another festival act.

ELTON JOHN DOES SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS

Stick with us. Elton likes a challenge. He did an entire dance-themed show with P’nau and never shies away from playing his hits. And there’s plenty of them. Once again, punters would be keen to see what he does, and Elton has never lost the passion for music. He’ll have heard of every indie or hipster act on the Splendour bill and imagine the potential for a one-off collaboration. Lionel Richie would also kill a festival in Australia, as long as he dumped a few ballads (bar Hello, obvs) and stuck more to the All Night Long/Dancing On the Ceiling vibe.

Bonus for Elton: his private jet won’t have to far to fly back from his Sydney base when touring Australia.

Class act .. Tim Finn at the Split Enz reunion in 2009. He knows how to work a crowd.

SPLIT ENZ DOES LANEWAY

OK, so we’re dreaming here. But Split Enz aren’t permanently dormant — they played Sound Relief in 2009. And were jaw-droppingly amazing. Neil Finn knows Laneway Festival, his 438th band Pajama Club played there a few years back, and he seemed to enjoy a younger audience who weren’t expecting all the usual hits. Split Enz’s aesthetic fits Laneway’s, even though they’re not really about the ‘older’ acts, but hey. We would also settle for Midnight Oil if they wanted to get back to The Streets. Or TISM.

Bonus for Split Enz: the food at Laneway is pretty damn good, you know.