This morning saw the announcement of the line-up for this year’s Parklife Festival. The festival will travel to five locations - the Gold Coast (not Brisbane, as in the past), Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide - over late September and early October. Heading the line-up is Missy Elliott, who’s apparently travelling with a 27-piece “entourage”. Good god. Other headliners include Groove Armada, Soulwax, The Dandy Warhols, Cut Copy, Uffie and Midnight Juggernauts.
There are also a couple of, erm, left-field choices (in the vein of Bertie Blackman last year): Brisbane songstress Washington is on the bill, as is Kele (of Bloc Party fame). The inclusion of acts like The Dandy Warhols, Kele and Washington continues the festival’s trend towards a hybrid dance/indie line-up, something that’s been noticeable with Parklife over the last couple of years. John Wall - co-founder of promoter Fuzzy Entertainment - told The Vine that this is something that punters have demanded in recent times. “Music keeps changing and so do our tastes and our customers’ tastes,” he notes. “We see it as our sacred duty, as it were, to reflect that but particularly to be an active part of that process: Helping to make new acts and styles of music bigger, changing not just our event but people’s ideas about what music relevant to them.”
The Vine is particularly pleased to see Memory Tapes on the line-up; when we caught up with the festival’s directors, we asked them if there were any acts that they were especially excited about. Fuzzy co-founder Ming Gan nominated Missy Elliott: “One of the biggest coups for us was to be able to get [her] as part of her return tour after being off the road for over three years. With 28 people in her touring party, the logistics for this tour alone are going to be very interesting!”
Clearly the state of the global economy presents a challenge for festival organisers, particularly with the recent nose-dive for the Australian dollar. Gan told us that Parklife hasn’t suffered directly as a result of this: “Last year’s Parklife was the most successful Parklife, selling more tickets than any previous year so we don’t feel that the economic downturn has affected our demographic. However,” Gan notes, “we’re not complacent and we’re always trying to make the Parklife experience as attractive as possible to people.”
As to what that might entail, the promoters are cagey: “There will be plenty of surprises in the lead up to the event and on event day,” says Fuzzy GM Adelle Robinson, but doesn’t identify what such surprises might be. Yet.
In the meantime, the full line-up is as follows: Groove Armada, The Dandy Warhols, Cut Copy, The Wombats Darwin Deez, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, Wolf Gang, Washington, Missy Elliott, Kele, Midnight Juggernauts, Dan Black, Chiddy Bang, Mix Master Mike, Sinden, Bag Raiders, Soulwax, Busy P, Uffie, Jack Beats, The Glitch Mob, Brodinski, DJ Mehdi, AC Slater, Holy Ghost!, Memory Tapes, Classixx, Delorean, New Young Pony Club, The Swiss, Jesse Rose and Grum.
The festival tour kicks off on Saturday 25 September at Parklands on the Gold Coast, then heads to Wellington Square in Perth on Sunday 26 September, the Myer Music Bowl im Melbourne on Saturday 2 October, Moore Park in Sydney on Sunday 3 October and the Botanic Gardens in Adelaide on Monday 4 October. Tickets go on sale from Thursday 1 July.