Meredith Music Festival drops massive 2022 lineup

Same size, same shape, still BYO everywhere, still independent, with no commercial sponsors, and one stage fits all. Meredith Music Festival has dropped its 2022 lineup and it’s as diverse as we’ve ever seen it – a brilliant mix of electronica, indie, rock, punk, hip hop and pop!

Custom-cut for the 30th Meredith anniversary – this lineup marks the incredible return of the Supernatural Soundsystem – with a lineup Aunty notes is specifically curated for certain times of day and night. No commercial sponsors, no commercial signage, no market stalls, no timetable clashes, nobody telling you where to camp, no curfew…just The Meredith Gift, Sunset Strip, Ecoplex Cinema, Silence Wedge, SportsField, The Pink Flamingo, Inspiration Point, The Meredith Eye, Eric’s Terrace, CleanUp Songs, singalongs, Master Song’s Tai Chi.

Full Meredith Music Festival 2022 lineup

Caribou
Yothu Yindi
Courtney Barnett
The Comet Is Coming
Dry Cleaning
Tkay Maidza
Sharon Van Etten
Nu Genea
DJ Quik
Erika de Casier
Babe Rainbow
Derrick Carter
Private Function
SHOUSE
CLAMM
Minami Deutsch
Tasman Keith
Surprise Chef
Our Carlson
Darcy Justice
POOKIE
Rot TV
OK EG
Allara
Rubi Du
Daphni
Some More To Come

Meredith dates and location

• December 9, 10 & 11, 2022
• Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre
• The town of Meredith, Victoria’s Midland Highway

Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.

“For Adventure. For Celebration. A crack squad of sonic mavericks, beyond the sum of its parts. More than a list, more than a register. A three-day-two-night odyssey supreme, with a beginning, middle and end in which to lose yourself, find yourself, expand yourself and feel feel feel feel feel feel feel. Then do it again, twice. Magic O’Clock strikes at any time – sometimes selected, mostly unexpected,” the announcement read.

“All on the One and Only Stage, with the Evolving Atmospherics of the Supernatural Amphitheatre, and Mother Nature on the lights. Seldom has there been a more anticipated guest. In the beating heart of Saturday Night, all Supernatural paths lead to this. It’s taken some spectacular planetary alignment and, finally, here we are, for the first time ever. Lighting every candle on The 30th Meredith’s cake.”

The Auntytecture remains intact; same size, same shape, same abundant amphitheatre and campgrounds – looking extra-super-natural after their convalescence. There’ll be a grassy grandstand finish for the Sun, a late rinse in some scrub cinema, a Tucker Tent, Tai Chi, pink drink, and of course the nude loop ‘round The Sup’.

How to get tickets to Meredith (the ballot)

An ode to Meredith, the greatest music festival on the planet

Held at the famous ‘Supernatural Amphitheatre’, Meredith Music Festival's ballot is now open. One of Victoria’s most prized music events, Meredith Music Festival’s 30th anniversary, is slowly creeping up and you can start getting excited because they’ve gone ahead and opened the ticket ballot.

Announcing its return back in May following a two-year hiatus, Meredith Music Festival – often referred to as the greatest festival on the planet – is heading back to the Supernatural Amphitheatre in Meredith this December 9-11 2022 and the ballot is your best way to secure your spot in The Sup’.

As is usual, the great majority of tickets to Meredith will be available via the Subscriber Ticket Ballot, before they go on public sale.

If you were already a ticket subscriber, good news: you get to enter the first round of the ballot. If you haven’t yet subscribed, there’s still a chance to do so in order to enter the second round. Two rounds of ticket offers are made via email to successful applicants; one around mid-August, and then another a week later. Any Subscribers who are unsuccessful in the first round are automatically entered into the second round ballot. It’s simpler than it sounds, just pick a link above and go for it. It’s free and easy and quick.

Following two ballot rounds, keen punters still have to chance to buy tickets through the online sales and Aunty’s Last Chance, but let’s be real: you’d be a fool not to enter the ballot. Tickets will be in the form of wristbands again this year and there is only one type of ticket available, which gets you in on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Which means everyone can come for the full weekend.

Meredith's sister festival Golden Plains will also return March 11, 12 and 13, 2023.

Why is Meredith so special?

Meredith started in 1991 as a one-time blow out for a coupla hundred free-wheelin’ friends. So much fun was had that she just kept on keeping on. Over thirty years of collective know-how married with wild ambition means this sweet little parcel of land is now a purpose-built, free-standing wonderpark.

Featuring a single stage, free range camping, BYO, and no commercial messages, Meredith is and always will be a festival like other.

Meredith started as an end-of-year party in 1991 ($2 notes were in circulation, Bob Hawke was PM) for about 200 people on the Nolan farm near Meredith, Victoria. It was only cheekily called the ‘Meredith Music Festival’ because there were some bands playing on the back of a truck. It was BYO and everyone stayed the night in tents, in cars, or sleeping outside. It was open to all-comers (and still is). A few locals cooked a BBQ, which tripled as breakfast, lunch and dinner. So much enjoyment was had that it went down again the next year, and the next, and now, thirty-odd years later, the 30th Birthday Party is set to Happen.

Meredith is still BYO, is still held on the Nolan farm, the original organisers are still involved and it is still a celebration of music, nature and humans having a wild time with each other and their environment. And the locals still do the BBQ.

25 things everyone has said at Meredith

Who to see at Meredith 2022?

Caribou & Daphni

Lighting every candle on The 30th Meredith’s cake: Caribou. Dan Snaith leads a four-piece band who flip out through every flavour of fun. They huddle around centre stage in a buzzing coil, powering up a gigantic aural adventure to make us dance and feel. And feel and dance. Can’t Do Without You. Odessa. Never Come Back. Our Love. You Can Do It. Sun - communal levitation for the Meredith massive.

Dan is a chameleonic character who has wondrously weaved his sonic inspirations – from Beach Boys and Dilla to the Coltranes and Aphex Twin – over two illustrious decades and counting. The kaleidoscopic back-cat trips through 10 records of blissful folktronica, sun-kissed psychedelia and surging house bangers.

A rare treat indeed. Returning to the stage once he’s packed his Caribou gear away, Dan Snaith will don his club-minded alias for a prime time Satdee night deejay set. Absolutely Sizzlin. A supreme selector, a musical journeyman, a good times merchant. With a new album in his briefcase to boot. It’s a Supernatural first and we thought he might think us crazy for asking, but who better to kick off the late night partee proper. He said yes. Cherry on top.

Dry Cleaning

A squalling, ragged post-punk force walking in the ghostly shadows of Wire, Magazine and Joy Division. Emerging from South London in 2018, Lewis Maynard, Tom Dowse, Nick Buxton and Florence Shaw produced one of last year’s best in New Long Leg. A collection of searing, surrealist distillations propelled by the extraordinary weight of Flo’s poetic beats and dents, her Sprechgesang-esque delivery and tricky, slippery words at the thumping centre of it all. Their next, helmed again by John Parish, already sounds like something else. A more melodic and personal turn, its first single Don’t Press Me feels like a rune for the year, filling the cavity with each guitar squall, each pointed phrase.

Never doubt the magnificence and splendour of one, Meredith Music Festival

Yothu Yindi

Songs that altered the very fabric of this country. That re-shaped the way we saw ourselves, the music we made, the stories we told. In ’86 Yothu Yindi brought together Yolngu and Balanda musicians to forge a sound like nothing we’d heard before. Blending rock ‘n’ roll with the traditional song cycles of the Gumatj and Rirratjingu clans of north-east Arnhem Land, they shared Language and Dance with the world. Powerful, political, potent. Yothu Yindi blazed a trail that burns bright to this day, lighting the way for generations of First Nations musicians.

Courtney Barnett

Courtney returns to the 3333. It’s been seven years since she last took to the one-and-only stage, and nine since her first Meredith set, back when the world was just catching on. Since then all those songs, the wit, the quietly virtuosic guitar playing, the live shows, and the magnetic, enigmatic character she is have become adored all over the globe. A once-in-a-generation songwriter telling her story, and sometimes ours too. Four acclaimed records deep, her latest, Things Take Time, Take Time, is one for The Moment. A shuffle sideways of sorts, CB ruminates on all of it. Mellifluous melancholy and harried hopefulness emerge over springy beats and guitar that wanders, spacey and gentle, with newfound purpose.

Sharon Van Etten

SVE, radiating a force field of triumphant epicness as the sun sets on a Meredith summer’s eve.  The emotive warmth and vulnerable beauty of her voice. Part rock show, part seance. All pure transformative delight. She is one of modern music’s most formidable songwriters and, six records in, her output continues to go to new places. An undisputed institution, she is adored by her contemporaries: Nick Cave, Fiona Apple, Bon Iver, Angel Olsen, the list goes on and on. Lose yourself in '22's We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong to remember why. A record of dramatic peaks and devastating emotional turmoil, it riffles through domestic anxieties and relationships while staring resolutely out at the Big Messy World. 

Private Function

The loosest units on the block. Dysfunctional dissidents daring to get a little bit weird. And then weirder still. Stumbling upon a Private Function d-floor is like taking a detour into the primordial soup, you never know what will spring forth: resurrected Gobbledoks, flaming walls of pyrotechnics, even Daddy Cool covers. Upside down punks, subverting the perversion to give us one helluva freaky deaky rock show. It simply has to be seen to be believed. Buckle up. Saturday night.

Derrick Carter

Raised in Chicago, the birthplace of house music, Derrick Carter started out mixing in his bedroom at age nine. By his teens he’d been pulled into the city’s club and ballroom scene. By the 90s he was known as one of dance music’s true professionals – a man who connects to the joy of the dancefloor and can work up heat with seemingly effortless flair. His sets seamlessly blend house with disco, soul, R&B, hip hop, jazz, blues, techno, and whatever else he’s feeling. His productions have a legacy all their own. 

Find out more info here. The second round closes at 10:30pm on Monday August 22. Head to the festival website for more information.