As Easter approaches, so to does the East Coast Blues & Roots festival, held in Byron Bay every Easter long weekend. This year its going to be massive, with the likes of The Black Crowes, John Butler Trio, Wilco, Jeff Martin, Sinead O’Connor, Keith Urban, Eskimo Joe, Maceo Parker, Don McLean, Gotye, Clare Bowditch, plus Angus and Julia Stone.

As with all music festivals, the ticket price grows with the festival’s success. This year, to attend for just three of the five days is $300+. Worth it, when you look at it in a purely economic “cost-per-band” perspective, but still expensive when you look at it in a “I will need to eat at some point in time” perspective. When you add on top of that the cost of staying in or around Byron, it becomes an even more expensive exercise.

So, for those of us on a budget, who won’t be attending this year’s Blues and Roots, there is an alternative! Friday 22nd February at the Globe Theatre in Fortitude Valley, you can get your fix of local blues and roots from some of Brisbane’s hottest immerging artists. Bold, honest and raw, Tim Loydell & the Deckchairs, Anna Weatherup, and The Rooftops have each been making waves around the city, state and country, with their organic sounds and cruising grooves.

Tim Loydell & the Deckchairs

When The Rooftops launched their debut album, Storm Season in mid 2006, Rave Magazine predicted it would be “mandatory Summer listening”. Triple J agreed, with the first single “Making Photographs” enjoying regular airplay. Host Sarah Howells (Roots & All) claims it as ‘One of my favourite songs of this Summer..so cruisy and full of sunshine”.

Tim Loydell & The Deckchairs, although all under 20, are incredible masters of their instruments. They write evocative songs, which talk honestly and openly to their loyal fans. Tim commands attention with his prodigious guitar playing & powerful voice; and with the added colour of lap steel guitar, these boys are certain to take the festival circuit by storm.

Anna Weatherup is originally from Townsville, but Brisbane audiences have well and truly claimed her as their own! Anna, in her trademark singlet and jeans, is full of energy and life. She can capture the ears and hearts of a huge audience simply with her guitar, her incredible voice and “stompy” (her stomp-box). Once you see Anna play, you’ll be her fan forever.

Let Byron have its latte-set festival. If you like it raw and dirty, I’ll see you there next week!

For those who don’t know, the Big Day Out is an annual music festival touring Australia and New Zealand. It orginated in Sydney in 1992, and has since grown to include Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth and Auckland.

I’ve been regularly attending the Gold Coast BDO for more years than I care to remember (the Gold Coast being the closest BDO to Brisbane.) This year was no exception.

On first impressions, the line-up was fairly unremarkable, with the notable exception of the recently reformed Rage Against The Machine. On the back of that news, Gold Coast tickets sold out in record time (by 10am on the day they went on sale.) Tickets in Sydney have been regularly selling out within an hour in recent years, but even with Tool headlining last year, Gold Coast tickets were available for days after their release.

Usually, once the schedule comes out, I have it printed out and I begin planning out my day - who I want to see when. This year, I didn’t really look too hard at it - I figured it’s usually a top day anyways, and because there was noone I desperately had to see, I’ll catch up with my festival-going buddies and maybe see some acts I otherwise wouldn’t have. And I’m glad as hell I did.

Enter Shikari set the scene early - a British harcore four-piece when the singer yelled “Don’t you people fkn crowd-surf!? Pull yer socks up Australia!” I had never heard of these guys before, but I went out the next day and bought their Take to the Skies album. They seem to be striving for a new sound, mixing metal with keyboards and sequencers. At times, the album feels a little awkward, mashing together these seemingly incompatible styles, and it certainly doesn’t quite capture their live presence. Can’t wait for the next album though - they seem to have matured as a band from the time the album came out to the time I saw them.

Battles was another highlight. When I first heard their Mirrored album, I was equal parts intrigued and confused. But the more I listened to it, the more it tunneled into my consciousness. These guys use talent and technology to create textured soundscapes, the likes of which you’ve never heard. Their live show was an experimental tour de force, which lifted me for the better part of an hour, and left me physically and mentally exhausted.

The Big Day Out is always filled with solid Aussie acts and this year was no exception, which the likes of Paul Kelly, Sarah Blasko, Karnivool, Gyroscope, Grinspoon and Blue King Brown.

The biggest disappointment for me was the Arcade Fire. Neon Bible was one of my albums of 2007, but live, they didn’t cut it on the day. Silverchair were likewise unimpressive. And the Hilltop Hoods - well, those guys have done the same show for more than two years, the same set, the same crowd interaction, the same “freestyle”…

If you’ve never been to a Big Day Out, do yourself a favour and go! Just wait until I’ve got my ticket first

Lucky for me, I am just young enough to miss the phenomenon of touring international acts skipping Brisbane on their Australia tours. Being the third largest city in the country, it seems to me that would have made these so-called “tours” rather abrupt. After spending the better part of a day at 30,000 feet, you’d think whichever semi-talented flavour-of-the-month would want to spend as long as they could in the country. I guess it just came down to economics.

For me, life was good, and international acts were frequent. From the early ninety’s, I saw Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, The Black Crowes, Jeff Buckley, Alice in Chains, Lou Reed, Violent Femmes, Primus, Tool, The Tea Party, Ween, The Flaming Lips, Pennywise, and even Ice T and Body Count. I’m not sure when Brisbane become economically viable, but I note it was skipped by Guns ‘N Roses and Skid Row in early 1993 much to my adolescent displeasure.

I came of age in 1993, opening up a world of seedy nightclubs and licensed venues. At the time, Brisbane was known around the country for its appallingly bad and numerous cover bands. At any given pub on any given weekend, there’d be a sea of denim and flannelette, writhing en masse to a butchered version of My Sharona or Highway to Hell. It was a great time to be alive.

Somehow, Brisbane still managed to produce talent. Notably, the Saints and the Go-Betweens grabbed international success after clawing their way from this stagnant backwater. Also, the Gibb brothers, who grew up to become the Bee Gees. In more recent times, we’ve seen Powderfinger and Savage Garden conquer the world; the Veronicas and Kate Miller-Heidke seem to have done quite well for themselves; and Regurgitator, George, the Resin Dogs and Custard all immerged from that Brisbane hot spot, Fortitude Valley.

In 2007, the music world had to sit up and take notice when US entertainment bible Billboard magazine ranked Brisbane among the world’s top music hotspots. Billboard named the Queensland capital as one of the five “unlikely” cities spawning exciting new sounds, alongside Beijing, Birmingham, Berlin and Marseille.

Brisbane is a city alive with music. As stated in Billboard, Brisbane “now has such a rich vein of talent that it’s threatening Melbourne’s traditional role as Australia’s main music city.”

So strap in and hang on – there’s a hell of a lot to tell you about!