AUGIE MARCH
Australian music legends, Augie March, will headline alongside special guests and class of 2024 Be_Hear/Now artists, Coda Chroma and Day Fever.
Straddling the various sub and mainstream cultures of the Australian music world with relative comfort and ease for years, Augie March have continued to do what they do regardless of what ice cream flavour is melting on the contemporary footpath. Winners of the AMP, Hottest 100, various APRA gongs and much else, this unassuming lot have been indie as can be, spread all over the corporate map, revered across the globe by the highest, mightiest, lowest and dirtiest.
You can see them exclusively for one night only, making tender dreams and rolling nightmares, joining the legendary live music touring hallows of Civic Hall Ballarat.
ADAM DONOVAN – DAVE WILLIAMS – EDMONDO AMMENDOLA – GLENN RICHARDS – KIERNAN BOX
Over the last 25 years, few Australian bands have enjoyed a synergy of critical and commercial success like Augie March. Their songs are heard on almost every radio format in the country – with gold and platinum albums to their credit – yet they remain iconoclasts, perennial outsiders.
The band was born in post-grunge Collingwood, Melbourne, late 1995. Their first gig was at a friend’s art gallery exhibition. Early comparisons to Radiohead and Jeff Buckley were made, but pigeon-holing has never been easy. Augie incorporate many traditional elements, yet at times become wildly avant-garde. With Glenn Richards’ literate and layered lyrics to the forefront, the band’s songs sashay from delicate melancholy ballads to surging, impassioned, heavy rhythm and blues. They have been regularly touted as one of Australia’s most important bands; their songs have become staples at weddings and funerals. The recordings are justly celebrated, the once-erratic live show now a broiling cauldron of finely-honed Australian classics.
The seminal debut album Sunset Studies (2000) was widely acclaimed on release, and has managed to grow in stature over the years, now certified gold. Cult classics Strange Bird (2002) and Watch Me Disappear (2008) were full of eclectic and challenging material. Sandwiched between these albums was the platinum smash Moo, You Bloody Choir (2006) which saw this hitherto alternative band gate-crash the mainstream party. Lead single One Crowded Hour became a radio staple, was voted #1 in JJJ’s Hottest 100 poll of 2008 and won the APRA award for Song of the Year. The album won the prestigious Australian Music Prize.
American and European tours, supporting Wilco, Gomez, Andrew Bird, earned a small but loyal international fanbase.
Exhausted after a sustained period of commercial exposure and a relentless work schedule, the band retreated into a 5-year hiatus, before a second wind billowed the sails. In recent years Augie March has re-established itself as a formidable creative force in Australian music, with three albums, Haven’s Dumb (2014), Bootikins (2018) and Bloodsport & Porn (2021/22). These albums represent a modern era for the band, all of them exhibiting the dexterity, wisdom and maturity which you might expect from a band which, after decades together, is still searching for fresh ideas and new musical experiences.
