There’s a fresh-faced kid on the music festival block.
Introducing A Festival Called Panama, which takes its name not from the Van Halen song, but the leafy surrounds in which its located.
Located among the Panama forest in the picturesque Lone Star Valley, situated in Tasmania’s North-East, A Festival Called Panama is planned as a “unique arts and music experience”, a two-day festival with plenty of trimmings – including free camping, hot showers, food stalls and “small-batch cider brewed on-site.”
Launching on the weekend of Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th March, 2014, A Festival Called Panama promises a lineup of international and local artists, as well as “sideshows of hard swinging bebop jazz, vinyl soul club DJs and world-class pop-up cabarets.”
As for who will be playing the inaugural Panama Festival, the event’s organisers have revealed the first batch of artists providing the sweet sounds that will fill the forested location, located 45 minutes north of Launceston.
Soul survivor Charles Bradley leads the international roster, jetting all the way from Brooklyn, New York to deliver his soul-infused show to the green Tasmanian hills. Planned as a “unique arts and music experience”, a two-day festival with plenty of trimmings – including free camping, hot showers, food stalls and “small-batch cider brewed on-site.”
The Daptone hero will already be in the country that weekend for the Golden Plains festival in Victoria, before making the trip across the pond for Panama Festival to close the inaugural event’s main stage on the Sunday night.
Charles Bradley arrives Down Under off the back of his latest album, Victim Of Love a record that found Bradley “bursting at the seams” while channeling the likes of Marvin Gaye and James Brown, according to our Tone Deaf reviewer; “This is a man so full of emotion that sometimes, it seems, he can’t express it in words,” they wrote.
Joining Charles Bradley on the first-ever Panama Festival lineup is Melbourne’s folk-infused favourites, Husky. Their appearance comes after nearly two years’ solid globetrotting off the back of their debut album Forever So, which saw the quartet becoming the first Australian artist to sign with legendary Seattle indie label, Sub Pop, with Panama being one of the first events for Husky to showcase the new material they’ve been quietly crafting for their follow-up album.
Complementing the local contingent on the Panama bill is none other than Geelong’s own floppy-fringed garage punks, The Frowning Clouds, who will shake the tress with their mod-inspired, 60s drenched rock n’ roll.
The vision for the boutique event is “small – a tiny festival, in a beautiful valley, with the best bands in the world,” Panama’s Artistic Director, Tim Carroll tells Tone Deaf, who adds “we couldn’t be more pleased with the lineup we have gathered with nods to soul, garage, new folk and hard swinging jazz.”
The full Panama Festival 2014 lineup will include 20 live bands, along with a selection of DJs, circus performers, as as well as a “killer vinyl soul club.”
Carroll is also enthused with Panama’s unique location, which will be shared with local flora and fauna. “The site is incredible, surrounded by the towering Panama Forrest and home to Quolls, Platypus, and Black Cockatoos. It shows off what Tasmania is renowned for – beautiful, rugged Wilderness,” he says.
To that end, the official Panama Festival website outlines its aims to being a sustainable event to ensure patrons “have as little impact on the land as possible,” with a “ZERO trash” policy; ‘You ship it in, you ship it out’.
There are just 1,000 foundation tickets available to the inaugural Panama Festival, with weekend adult passes going for $160 (Children 4 and under are free to attend) and go on sale from 1st December.
Panama Festival joins Tasmania’s enviable roster of music events, including Falls Festival’s regular Marion Bay leg, Hobart’s MONA FOMA – which announced its 2014 lineup last week – its recently launched ‘sister winter festival’ DARK MOFO, as well as the annual Breath of Life Festival, which unveiled its impressive lineup this month despite the lack of support from local Launceston council.
The new boutique camping festival also arrives in a climate that’s seen some of the Aussie festival market’s biggest players face major struggles in recent months. In the last few months there’s been the cancellation of Homebake, Harvest, Pyramid Rock and Big Day Out’s second Sydney date due to poor ticket sales, as well as issues with Bluesfest’s inaugural Boomerang festival and ATP’s Release The Bats, among others.
All of which may serve to demonstrate that the burgeoning market of the early oughties is a bubble that’s beginning to burst as the festival market resets and adjusts.
Regardless, A Festival Called Panama seems to tick a lot of boxes in offering something different to a demographic that’s perhaps become jaded with the blockbuster-sized festival mainstays.
Panama Festival 2014 Lineup
Charles Bradley
Husky
The Frowning Clouds
+ more to be announced
Panama Festival 2014 Dates, Tickets
8th & 9th March, 2014
Lone Star Valley Golconda, Tasmania
Limited Tickets for the foundation event will go on sale on December 1st.
Adults: Full weekend pass $160
Humans 12-17: $100
Kids 5 – 11: $50
Children 4 and under: Free
For all ticketing information and further details go to www.panamafestival.com.au
