Hip hop royalty and Northern Australian favourites Hilltop Hoods are joined by a stellar line up of Australian and New Zealand artists for People’s Choice BASSINTHEGRASS 2019. Celebrating its 17th year, over twenty artists will rock across two stages at its new location at Mindil Beach! Adding to that top end flavour will be local artists and the winner of Battle of the School Bands providing non-stop entertainment for 12 straight hours!
“BASSINTHEGRASS is always a highlight of our touring schedule, it’s one of the reasons we keep coming back to Darwin and we can’t wait to check out the new Mindil Beach venue,” says Suffa of headlining act, Hilltop Hoods who recently released their new album, The Great Expanse.
Check out the epic line up!
On the back of scoring a history-making third ARIA Award for Best Dance Release, multi-platinum selling LA-based Australian electro pop pioneers PNAU returned to headline major festivals including Lost Paradise, Origin, Beyond The Valley and Bay Dreams in Australia and New Zealand over the New York Summer period.
The indie-pop music artist’s lead single I Said Hi has been embraced by fans all over the world, hitting platinum sales (70,000+) within three months of its release. The Australian singer-songwriter continues to take the international music scene by storm, completing three Northern American tours and performing sell out shows in Los Angeles, New York, Portland and Seattle. Her debut London headline show in October 2017 also sold out three days after going on sale.
The globe-trotting Melbourne-bred singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist’s achievements as Chet Faker are great and varied. His critically acclaimed debut album Built On Glass went platinum and his collaboration with Marcus Marr was a bona-fide hit too. He gained a reputation as a serious international player, selling out headline tours and playing major festivals throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Shedding his pseudonym in 2017, Murphy released the acclaimed Missing Link EP and headlined Vivid Festival at the Sydney Opera House, and returned to stages at Coachella, Glastonbury, Primavera Sound and more.
Fourteen years ago an unknown band from Perth pooled their very limited resources and got to work on their debut album. Recorded in various spaces, in various ways, with a slightly varying line-up, they borrowed gear, they borrowed money, they borrowed space and they used some tunings that perhaps haven’t been heard again. The band were Karnivool and the album that had so much blood, sweat and tears expended on it in those early hours was Themata.
‘Hannah Montana of the rap game’ – it’s the tongue-in-cheek name that Mallrat gave herself early in her career and the best description the then 16-year-old could ascribe the bright, bouncy pop she made, inspired by the likes of her rap heroes Allday, Drake and Kayne. Fast forward a few years and when you say ‘Mallrat’, you know exactly the sound and vibe we’re talking about. The young artist is perfectly positioned to be Australia’s next big name in pop music and with the release of her second EP In the Sky via Dew Process and Nettwerk last year, stardom seems inevitable.
Hilltop Hoods make their return to the world stage with their hit single Leave Me Lonely and ARIA Award-winning song Clarke Griswold featuring Adrian Eagle. Their new album The Great Expanse follows their six times platinum hit 1955 and two times platinum hit Higher – both lifted from the critically acclaimed 2016 orchestral remix album Drinking From The Sun, Walking Under Stars Restrung. The group have sold a staggering 1.6 million singles and nearly one million albums to date. They’ve garnered enormous industry accolades with eight ARIA awards, a J Award, six songs in the Top 10 of Triple J’s Hottest 100, five top ten ARIA singles and have a staggering five ARIA number one albums to their name.
After a string of successful self-released singles, EPs and mixtapes, the LA-via-Melbourne rapper dropped his debut album, Startup Cult. It landed him a number three spot on the ARIA Charts – falling behind to only SIA and Ed Sheeran. Hit singles Right Now and You Always Know The DJ were spawned and caught the ear of seasoned tastemakers like Sway Calloway, Complex, and Pigeons & Planes. The LP scooped up over 25 million streams and sold over 20,000 units just at home. A couple of features (Troye Sivan and Asta) and a mixtape or two later, and Allday’s latest album Speeding – with Sides, Raceway and the incredible In Motion – is setting off sparks of excitement among his 500,000+ social media followers.
SIX60 is a five-piece New Zealand band that was formed in 2008 and to date, they remain one of that country’s biggest international touring groups.
Their first two singles Rise Up 2.0 and Don’t Forget Your Roots from their debut album reached number one and two respectively on the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand singles chart and were both certified double and triple Platinum by RMNZ. A seasoned live act, the band has performed at Glastonbury, SXSW, The Great Escape and CMJ in addition to multiple sold out tours to thousands of fans in New Zealand and Australia.
At just 16-years of age, London-born, Sydney-raised, singer-songwriter Ruel has certainly achieved a lot. Best known for his singles Don’t Tell Me and Younger, Ruel’s talent was further uncovered when he became the youngest recipient in history to win the prestigious ARIA Award for ‘Breakthrough Artist’ last year. His EP, Ready ,has already amassed over 100 million global streams and features standout singles Don’t Tell Me, Dazed and Confused, Younger and Not Thinkin’ Bout You, all of which have been propelling Ruel on a swift, upward trajectory.
Critically acclaimed indie-pop duo Broods released their third album, Don’t Feed The Pop Monster on February 1 2019 via Neon Gold/Atlantic Records. Broods summer single, Peach, from new album Don’t Feed The Pop Monster has amassed nearly 10 million streams on Spotify alone. Broods have played leading festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza and Outside Lands and shared stages with artists like Ellie Goulding, Haim, Sam Smith and CHVRCHES over the past few years.
Multi-ARIA Award-winning Brisbane two-piece DZ Deathrays have come a long way from the first house party gig that they formed for. Signed to I Oh You in Australia/New Zealand, Dine Alone in Canada and Alcopop in the United Kingdom, they have covered a lot of ground over the years including winning an ARIA Award each for their first record Bloodstreams in 2012 and second record Black Rat in 2014. They’ve done multiple sold out tours of Australia, plus 22 international tours with the likes of Blood Red Shoes, Cerebral Ballzy and Band of Skulls. They’ve played Reading & Leeds, SXSW, CMJ, CMW and The Great Escape internationally, and Falls Festival, Splendour In The Grass and Laneway at home. They even performed a stadium tour, supporting American rock band, the Foo Fighters. Their new record Bloody Lovely debuted at number four in the ARIA Charts and number one in the Australian album charts.
Based in Sydney, award-winning duo Hermitude first began as a friendship over a shared love of music, making beats and digging for samples. After three albums, Hermitude moved deeper into electronic brushstrokes for HyperParadise and Dark Night Sweet Light, focusing less on sampling and more on their song writing and the exploration of textures. With a hunger for finding new influences and developing their craft, the duo worked and shared stages with the likes of Big K.R.I.T, Flume, ODESZA, Estelle, Keys N Krates, Ta-Ku and many more. They became part of the Soundcloud generation, introducing them to a community of electronic innovators and tastemakers.
Since launching his time-travelling, ‘dance through the decades’, audio-visual party concept in 2011, Sydney’s Tom Loud has grown his project into an absolute monster. The Australian DJ has been welcomed by international audiences with open arms with over 200,000 tickets already sold worldwide. He’s floored crowds at Coachella and is an annual best-seller at the highly competitive Edinburgh Fringe Festival, with two of his shows the biggest in the Fringe’s entire history. He’s also blitzed the festival circuit back home in Australia, headlining Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival and more, multiple times over. His Australian headline tours have sold out back-to-back as well. The key success of Hot Dub’s show is hinged on its widespread appeal – showcasing songs from every decade and genre of music including 60s rock, 70s disco, 80 cheese, 90s house, noughties electro and today’s radio hits. Loud then winds and weaves it into one expansive and electrifying, music lesson. Each song is played in chronological order – mixed live on turntables – and complemented with archival concert footage/music videos on massive screens while a virtual spaceship air hostess narrates the whole thing. Hot Dub Time Machine pinpoints the happiest moments of your partying days past, and re-creates those moments to perfection for you all over again, intertwining them with the right here and right now in the most exhilarating way possible. His party is forever entertaining and will surely go on for years to come.
The Lunar Society is a music journey that both Vyce Verso and Matt Summut have been on since 2014. Adelaide based musicians, DJs and dreamers, they bring together live saxophone blended with good vibes to deliver a fun show that has taken them all over Australia. Their debut album South Road is set for release later this year.
Australian singer-songwriter Meg Mac is gearing up for a massive 2019, after just releasing her new single Something Tells Me, the second single from her forthcoming mini album. In 2015, Meg Mac achieved her first top 50 chart appearance with Never Be, which entered the ARIA Singles Chart at number 39. It out-peaked her first top 100 single Roll Up Your Sleeves, which had reached number 80 in 2014. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2015, she was nominated for ‘Best Female Artist’ for MEGMAC and ‘Breakthrough Artist’ for Never Be. In 2016, Never Be made it to number 11 on the Triple J Hottest 100. Meg Mac’s debut album Low Blows was released in 2017 and entered the ARIA Chart at number two.
Caiti Baker, a vocalist and front woman raised on the sounds that birthed popular music, released her debut album Zinc in 2017. After debuting her music at the Darwin Festival in 2016, Caiti embarked on an extensive headline tour over four months down the east coast, followed by two support runs with Dan Sultan and Son Little where she was accompanied by guitarist Lindsay ‘The Doctor’ McDougall. She has toured with Dr G Yunupingu, Guy Sebastian and Booker T, has joined A.B. Original as a special guest on tour dates and festival gigs, and played at world renowned world music festival Womad. Caiti writes songs about what she knows and feels, sings with her soul and unashamedly performs the hell out of them. But that will all be obvious when you hear her music and watch her perform, which will have you either dancing or chilling with a grin on your face.
From a young age, Gumbaynggirr man Tasman Keith has been compelled to continue the great traditions of his people by telling stories through music. As the son of Aboriginal hip-hop pioneer Wire MC, Tasman brings forward the next generation of his family, delivering a powerful message through a unique sound of hip-hop, R&B and neo-funk. The AU Review 2018 exhibited a big year for Tasman with the release of his debut studio EP Mission Famous which was recorded in Skinnyfish Music’s Studio G. Teaming up with ARIA nominated producer James Mangohig and Bad Apples Music’s own Nooky, Tasman was able to present a coherent story inspired by his community of Bowraville.
Collectively raking in over 165,000 streams on Spotify, the lead single My Pelopolees became a staple hit, along with Divided being featured on Apple Music’s hip-hop playlist The New Australia and Mission Famous earning a high-rotation spot on Triple J and Spotify playlist All Aussie Hip-Hop. Using hip-hop as an important medium, Tasman gears up for bigger opportunities to further his music in 2019. Venturing into sounds that will rattle the music scene, this will lead Tasman Keith to be cemented as the future face and voice of hip-hop in Australia.
“We’re excited to attract music lovers of all ages to Darwin who are looking to extend their summer and see this fantastic line up of big names perform all in one location.” says Tim Watsford, Northern Territory Major Events Company General Manager . “With double the artists and a brand new venue at Mindil Beach, this year’s event is shaping up to be bigger and better than ever,”.
FESTIVAL DETAILS:
WHEN: Saturday 18th May 2019 – 11am to 11pm
WHERE: Mindil Beach
TICKETS:
General Admission: $105
Platinum Package: $220
– includes access to a private bar, rooftop views and a food and drinks package.