“Music brings people together,” Roach says. “It’s good to be involved with anything to do with the event and discussing things like reconciliation. It’s an important event.”
It has been eight years since the last NaranaFest, which featured the likes of Dan Sultan and Xavier Rudd. After the success of pop up events such as Narana Unplugged and gallery launches, the Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre is bringing the family friendly festival back to Geelong for a day of music, food and culture. With food trucks, an especially designed Boomerang stage, and a cultural exhibition, festival goers will get to see and hear the best of what Australia has to offer.
Joining Roach are acts like Yirrmal, Chris Russell’s Chicken Walk, and Kutcha Edwards. Roach leads the lineup as he celebrates the 25th anniversary of his debut album Charcoal Lane. “It’s always an honour to be the headline act,” he says. He’ll have some friends join him as he revisits the classic record, the significance of which has only grown through time.
“Some of the songs, they’ve become more poignant,” he says. “They’ve taken on a different meaning. When you first write songs and record them, they are just babies. They take on a deeper meaning. They’ve grown with me.”
As evidenced by tracks like Took The Children Away, Roach is unafraid to pour his life experiences into his lyrics. “Music is healing on so many levels. People listen to music when they’re down and sad. Even when you’re happy, people get up and dance.”
Roach has been through a series of struggles in the past few years, losing his partner Ruby and facing significant health problems. The songs he writes are more than just the sound of a nation; they’re a tool for finding inner peace and comfort. “Music has a great way to heal”.
Bringing together everyone in the local community, NaranaFest is designed to be a unique live music experience, highlighting well known and up and coming indigenous talent, as well as musicians local to the Geelong area. Located in Grovedale, the Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre is a cultural tourism and educational hot spot, teaching the art of listening and sharing in order to cultivate a culture of reconciliation.
In this way, Roach is the perfect headliner. His music crosses borders and draws us together as one, telling us about, “who we are as a country, and that’s all together as a people.”
“I think that each of our stories are Australian stories,” he says. “My story is your story, and your story is my story,” he says. “We are not as divided as some people think we are. We all pretty much hope. It’s all up to us.”
BY JESSICA MORRIS
