New Orleans bounce megastar Big Freedia is coming to Melbourne for a special show at Curtin House's Rooftop Bar on Friday November 11 as part of ALWAYS LIVE.
Big Freedia will play the Melbourne Rooftop Barshow on November 11 as one of the headliners of the second ALWAYS LIVE announcement, released today that also features a special intimate performance from TLC at Palais Theatre, as well as rooftop sets from Years & Years, The Veronicas and Thelma Plum.
Big Freedia will also be headlining Summer Camp festival, alongside fellow AlWAYS LIVE stars The Veronicas and Years & Years, which is going down later in November at Reunion Park.
Big Freedia Melbourne show at Rooftop Bar
- Big Freedia is playing a Melbourne show at Rooftop Bar as part of ALWAYS LIVE’s Islands in the Sky Series
- It’s happening at the famed skyline venue at the top of Curtin House in Melbourne
- It’s going down Friday November 11
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Bounce began 20 years ago in New Orleans, where in popular terms Big Freedia is the undisputed genre Queen. Freedia is a uniquely New Orleanian hip hop legend, who pioneered the highly energetic beats, chanted vocal refrains and especially physical style of back-heavy dance synonymous with the bounce genre, which hit new heights in the previous decade through collaborations with the likes of Beyonce and Drake.
As with just about everything from New Orleans, bounce is as much a culture unto itself as it is a product of culture. While bounce has had a fervent underground following since its inception, it stayed largely unrecognised outside of New Orleans for the first couple of decades. In recent years, however, popularity has skyrocketed. And there’s no bigger bounce music celebrity than Big Freedia.
“I’m very humbled about it,” Freedia told us a few years back. “It definitely did surprise me, how people gravitated to the culture of bounce music and to my music. I am very appreciative of all the people all around the world that have taken time out to even just listen to bounce music.” Bounce music is inextricably attached to an especially physical style of dance. These days, the back-heavy dance craze, twerking, is something of garish cliche. But twerking is actually another New Orleans original and a key component of bounce music culture.
ALWAYS LIVE CEO, Steve Smith said, “We are tremendously proud of these latest offering to round out the 2022 program. While the mix of events is broad, of all scales and taking place across the state, what they have in common is each brings special, one-off and exclusive events to Melbourne and Victoria, only for ALWAYS LIVE. They also build on the enormous momentum of our line-up to date.”
He continues; We launched ALWAYS LIVE in March with a record-breaking sell-out performance by Foo Fighters at GMBHA Stadium, closely followed by a 71,000 ticket, sell-out show for Billy Joel, and two sell-out events by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis at the beautiful Hanging Rock. Our rare and intimate Palais Theatre performance by global superstar Dua Lipa sold out in a matter of minutes. These highlights are a fraction of the ALWAYS LIVE program, which positions Melbourne as a global music city and Victoria as the live music capital of Australia.”
Keep up to date with Always Live by heading to their website.
