Gum Ball rolls out blueprint for success in uncertain times for festivals

Nobody told Dashville. The Gum Ball proved over the weekend that the 19-year-old Hunter Valley festival remains a cherished and vital part of the music scene.

If anything, it's reinforced that smaller-scale music festivals based on niche musical tastes and community-building are the future of the industry.

Not since 2019 has Dashville's dusty bush campsite been so heaving with music fans and families.

Almost 600 tickets were sold for Gareth Liddiard's solo set on Anzac Day night and many punters took a long weekend, guaranteeing the arena was packed with camping chairs by Friday afternoon for day one of the three-day festival.

Newcastle indie band Elestial and funksters SF Wrens made quite the impression during the afternoon. It was a particularly proud moment for Elestial frontwoman Elyssa Hawkins, who was one of the inaugural inductees of the Dashville's music mentor program, Young Gums, several years ago.

Brisbane's Radium Dolls fired up the crowd on sunset with a rollicking set of garage-punk with a slight new wave twist.

Frontman Will Perkins spent the majority of the set wearing just red flares and speed dealer sunglasses, whipping up the crowd for a leap off the amplifier stack during their closer Tractor Parts.

Maitland's Dave Wells provided a change of pace with his melodically-rich brand of pop-rock, before undoubtedly Gum Ball's best-named act - Don't Thank Me, Spank Me - bounced onto stage.

The Melbourne duo of Nitida Atkinson (vocals, guitar) and Esther Henderson (vocals, bass) was a pure dose of fun. Their set was half scrappy garage-pop, half comedy routine filled with songs about never dating parking inspectors, being best friends and odes to characters from Grease.

They also managed to turn the usually awkward onstage merchandise plug into a slick two minutes of comedy.

The musical comedy routine from Newcastle mainstays The Main Guy & The Other Guys was less convincing and tended to drag. But a large portion of the audience lapped it up.

There were no laughs for Melbourne post-punk band, RVG. This was a serious and powerful set that was potentially the highlight of Gum Ball 2024.

Fresh off the release of their third album and Australian Music Prize winner, Brain Worms, RVG are potentially the most interesting indie-rock band in Australia at the moment.

Lead guitarist and vocalist, Romy Vager, left nothing in the tank. Vager began the set with her face masked by her dark hair, but as the songs poured out and Dashville became hypnotised she exposed more of herself and her art.

Before performing older songs like That's All and I Used To Love You, it seemed like Vager was tormenting herself to re-live some bad old memory that the track triggered. It was emotional and it was haunting.

For many, the highlight of Gum Ball's line-up was Tropical F--k Storm, which features The Drones frontman Gareth Liddiard and bassist Fiona Kitschin.

TFS are a difficult band to pigeon-hole. It's a chaotic blend of psych, prog rock and punk. They challenged the audience with, at times, self-indulgent jams, but Gum Ball are a knowledgeable crowd and they mostly rode along down whatever scattered rabbit hole TFS took them.

They then brought it home with a thrilling version of Bee Gees' classic Stayin' Alive.

After such an impressive first day, Saturday struggled to match Friday for performances. However, the gorgeous autumn weather meant Dashville was bathed in sunshine and festive vibes.

Tasmanian songstress Claire Anne Taylor was captivating in her mid-afternoon set, which was predominantly filled with songs from her latest album Giving It Away. She's an old Dashville favourite, who first performed there for PigSty in July in 2016.

The crowd greeted her like an old friend.

One moment Taylor was a delicate folk singer, the next minute she was a storming blues-rock force of nature.

The soul-rock of For Old Times' Sake and the fiery Lay You Down In Cold Hard Ground were the peaks of the performance.

Another highlight of day two was 2000s pub-rockers Dallas Crane. While besides Dirty Hearts and Curiosity, what they might lack radio hits, it was more than compensated with sheer rock energy.

Frontman Dave Larkin injected a heavy dose of charisma as he rolled out powerful covers of AC/DC's Whole Lotta Rosie and Led Zeppelin's Rock'n'roll. The crowd ate it up.

NZ party animals Coterie offered a touch of reggae and hip-hop energy for Gum Ball and then Sydney's prog-metal band Battlesnake, dressed in medieval-looking gowns, took the festival down a bizarre left-turn.

A major disappointment were Sydney punk legends The Hard-Ons. The sludgy punk sound never clicked, despite the best efforts of new frontman Tim Rogers, of You Am I fame.

Dressed in tight silver pants and no shirt, the 54-year-old writhed and strutted like Iggy Pop or Mick Jagger, and as much as he believed in the Hard-Ons' material, it seemed the audience didn't.

Brisbane nine-piece Bullhorn then brought Saturday night to a close with a blast of horns and party beats.

Many punters went home on Sunday morning, due to the annoyance of Monday work commitments, but those who stuck around caught sets from Melody Pool, Burger Joint and rock titan Dan Sultan.