This event is part of the 2025 Rising festival.
Our festival-within-a-festival returns. 25 acts, 1 ticket. A day party of live music, performance and art. The day has come to trip again.
Limber up. It’s our live mixtape of music, performance art and mind-bending lasers. A hot swamp of beats and sonic feats on Swanston Street.
Let’s DIIV right in. Brooklyn’s best shoegazers are bringing their devastating swirl of feedback and melody to the Melbourne Town Hall mainstage. Annie and the Caldwells are down from Mississippi with their disco-tinged gospel. Atlanta rapper BKTHERULA is on board with her jagged, psychedelic sound. Ripple Effect Band are an all-women band slinging saltwater rock from Arnhem Land. Mount Kimbie are hitting the decks, back in the country after more than a decade. Dominica-via-Kreuzberg artist Tikiman plugs in with digital dancehall experiments alongside the deep and dubby sounds of Richard Akingbehin. Sydney’s Antenna are garage-punk featuring the soulful rasp of Royal Headache’s Shogun. Look out for the dance rascals from The Butterfly Who Flew into the Rave. They’re likely to spring out and pound the floorboards.
Across the road at Max Watt’s, Chapter Music are doing us the honour of throwing their farewell party with us and celebrating their 33rd birthday. They’re one of Australia’s longest running and musically adventurous independent labels. So, of course, their lineup is pure eclectic edge and indie charm. Join Chapter favourites Andras & Oscar, Gregor, Tenniscoats (who are over from Japan), Npcede, Little Ugly Girls, and Guy Blackman Band. They’re flying the cosmic-slacker charms of Ryan Davis in from Kentucky, and fast-rising Pluggnb star Sidney Phillips in from Brisbane, too.
Venture into Night Trade for laneways filled with food and festival action, including a Nyege Nyege showcase direct from Uganda, and its African neighbours, that celebrates the 10 crucial years they’ve taking ‘afrogalactic’ electronic music global. Or sojourn to The Capitol Theatre where Shohei Fujimoto’s intangible #form opens a laser-spiked gateway into the bleeding edge of perception.
Plenty more to come. This is just the tip of the trip, and we’re chomping at the bit.
