Byron Bay Bluesfest 2025 line-up: Crowded House, Vance Joy, Ocean Alley, Tones and I
A week after shocking festivalgoers and the music industry alike by revealing that Bluesfest would conclude in 2025, organisers have on Wednesday announced the first artist line-up.
A week after shocking festivalgoers and the music industry alike by revealing Byron Bay Bluesfest would conclude in 2025 after its 36th edition, organisers have announced the first artist line-up.
Perennial pop/rock favourites Crowded House take top billing as headliners for the finale, while a trio of popular Australian acts are billed underneath the Finn family affair: Vance Joy, Ocean Alley, and Tones and I, all of whom reliably fill large venues both here and abroad.
“They’re all Aussies, and I wanted the first announcement to be our great talent,” festival director Peter Noble told The Australian on Tuesday.
“And yes, Crowded House has played Bluesfest before [in 2022] – but Vance and Tones haven’t. Well, Tones did when she was a busker, in our busking comp; but she didn’t win that year, either.”
International acts booked among the first 20 performers include US blues singer, songwriter and guitarist Gary Clark Jr, British neo-blues artist Rag’n’Bone Man and Cuban funk/soul star Cimafunk. The latter act is one of several exclusive bookings, alongside US R&B/soul band The California Honeydrops, US keyboardist Neal Francis, young Australian guitarist Taj Farrant and Nashville-based funk rock band Here Come the Mummies, who perform while wrapped in bandaged, anonymising outfits.
Unlike the market hesitation of the past two years, the finality of his recent curtain call meant Noble and his team had found a strong base of ticket-buyers, as they seek to reach a capacity of about 25,000 people per day.
Rather than waiting to see who features on the first line-up announcement, thousands of people had already bought in to the four-day Bluesfest finale, to be held from April 17 to 20 at Byron Events Farm, 11km north of Byron Bay.
“We’re well past one-third sold out,” Noble said. “Who knows where we’ll be at the end of this week; in our dreams, we want to be half sold out.”
“It’s important that we actually turn around all this mythology that festivals don’t work; if a festival is sold out, then you can’t say festivals don’t work anymore.
“That’s for media, that’s for government investment – because without festivals, where is the whole ecology of the music industry going to be?
“The whole process of festivals hastens an artist career, and I’m very, very good at finding the right artists. Look at Taj Farrant; look at Here Come the Mummies – they’re the two most requested artists above every other artist from the last festival, and that includes Jack Johnson, Jimmy Barnes and Tom Jones: a 15-year-old Aussie who lives in America, and a band that dresses up as mummies.”
Noble said he expected to issue two or three more line-up announcements before Christmas, and one more in the new year.
In the past week, he said he had enjoyed “an outpouring of love” for the event, which began in 1990, for which he had been sole director and owner since 2008.
“I want to thank all the artists who’ve had their managers and agents call, wanting to get on the event; we haven’t even had a chance to go through all that yet. People can’t believe what I’ve done. I’m getting calls from all over the world, lots of people saying, ‘Well, how do we buy your event?’ I go, ‘You can’t – it’s not for sale’,” said Noble with a laugh.
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