It’s been a huge year for Bluesfest in Byron Bay, first picking up the silver award in the ‘Major Festival & Events’ category at the NSW Tourism Awards, followed by what has been described as the best ever lineup in Australian music festival history.
Now Peter Noble and his team have received more great news, that the festival has been nominated in the 24th Annual Pollstar Awards “International Festival of the Year” category, making it the first Australian festival to be nominated twice by this prestigious international awards system.
Although nominated once before in 2005, organisers say this new nomination has brought with it a fresh surge of excitement to the Bluesfest office.
In the same month that it is nominated amongst its international contemporaries and previous winners and nominees including Glastonbury [UK], Roskilde[Denmark], Fuji Rock[Japan], Rock AM RING [Germany], Oxegen [Ireland] and V Fest [UK], Bluesfest has been further recognised and acknowledged for its destinational qualities and environmental sensibilities.
“Although Bluesfest is all about the music, and what a line up 2013 will be; equally it’s also about the experience of coming to a sustainable environment and soaking up that special Byron vibe”, says Festival Director Peter Noble, who was recently ranked #65 for most tickets sold by a promoter around the world.
But it is the 2013 lineup that has drawn the most attention, with audiences gobsmacked as Bluesfest continues to roll out music legend after legend. The already mammoth lineup so far includes rock luminaries such as Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, guitar virtuoso Santana, Iggy & The Stooges, Paul Simon, Ben Harper, Status Quo, Counting Crows, Wilco, and an incredible number of other artists that are too plentiful to mention.
“Every single artist who gets to play Bluesfest from the first act on the smallest stage, to the last artist on the largest stage, is hand picked. ‘No filler only killer’ is my motto,” Noble told Tone Deaf in an interview earlier this year.
“It takes me years to book each Bluesfest,” Noble adds. “I often work on talent for many years to get them to come and play. It is something I do every day. I start work around 5am daily doing this thing – and I stop when it finishes. I am totally devoted to presenting the very best festival I can every year. It is my art, my life – my creation – my reason.”
But despite many labelling the 2013 lineup “the best ever in Australia”, Noble is showing no signs of slowing down and organisers are already hinting that there will be more lineup additions to come, including a very special act that is scheduled to be announced next Wednesday.
Peter Noble is reportedly in the United States negotiating and securing this unknown special guest, but with pal Michael Gudinski with Frontier Touring finally confirming Bruce Springsteen this morning – the rumour mill has now officially whipped into overdrive.
Organisers this morning are neither confirming nor denying the rumours, but the dates do seem to match up. Springsteen’s first show is in Brisbane on the 14th March, followed by Sydney on the 18th, and Melbourne on the 24th.
In addition to the capital cities, Springsteen will also be playing a special show at Hanging Rock, similar to those performed by Leonard Cohen and Rod Stewart, on Saturday 30th March; the same weekend as Bluesfest.
Could Springsteen make a quick detour up to Byron Bay to appear sometime between Thursday 28th March and Monday 1st April? It certainly feels right, but that doesn’t mean that it will be.
Noble is notoriously secretive, and incredibly competitive. Bruce Springsteen would be a massive coup, but there’s plenty of other fish in the sea, and Noble seems to have the biggest fishing rod this year.
