Gather Sounds: Footy round scores new Adelaide music festival
SA’s local artists are naming their own team selections for Gather Round, with today’s announcement of a debut music festival to feature classic Aussie tunes while thousands of footy fans are in town.
Adelaide-based rock band Bad//Dreems have programmed a brand-new two-day music festival to coincide with AFL Gather Round in April – with Grinspoon’s frontman making an appearance.
Gather Sounds is set to be hosted in the outdoor Cloisters Courtyard and UniBar at Adelaide University over two days on Friday, April 10, and Saturday, April 11.
Bad//Dreems guitarist Alex Cameron said the festival would capitalise on the influx of interstate visitors to showcase local music.
“Gather round has been great for Adelaide and we saw it as a unique opportunity to spotlight and celebrate local and independent music.”
“The festival will be combining our three favourite things: music, South Australian culture and football,” Cameron told InDaily.
Last year, state government figures showed Gather Round recorded a total attendance of 269,506 fans across the nine matches, with around 200,000 people flying in and out of Adelaide during the week.
Cameron said Adelaide “doesn’t often get the opportunity” to showcase local music that some eastern state city’s get.
“Over the last three years, A Nice Day to go to the Club Festival has shown that South Australians are really interested in local festivals — it’s definitely something we’d like to get going and make an annual thing.”
The Friday night would see Bad//Dreems launch their fifth studio album, Ultra Dundee, supported by local legends West Thebarton.
On Saturday, the festival would feature two stages from 2pm until midnight and be headlined by popular Australian acts Beddy Rays and Grinspoon frontman Phil Jamieson.
They will be joined by local artists Kurralta Park, West Thebarton, and Placement, with the artists to all join forces to play covers of classic Aussie tunes.
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“The bands performing we’re all mates with, so organising the lineup was easy,” Cameron said.
A portion of the proceeds would go to Reclink Australia, an organisation that assists disadvantaged Australians to achieve better physical and mental health through sport and recreation.
Bad//Dreems has previously organised fundraising music festival ‘Fire Aid’ to raise money for bushfire relief after fires devastated Australia in January 2020.
Fire Aid, which was also hosted at Adelaide University, sold around 3000 tickets and raised $250,000 for bushfire relief.
