Will Powderfinger headline Falls Festival 2020-21?

The Falls Festival organisers are pushing ahead with plans for the 2020-21 event. They’ve announced it’ll be an all-Aussie lineup, breeding speculation that Powderfinger could make a comeback for the event.

Mentions of Powderfinger have significantly increased in my household in recent days. It all started when we watched the ABC’s Recovery: The Music & the Mayhem documentary. The archival footage of Powderfinger was a reminder that the lads from Brisbane were once a band determined to mean something.

This was a few years before they became your dad’s mate’s favourite band, playing arena sized shows and headlining every given Australian festival. The Recovery performance of ‘The Day You Come’ in 1998 was an avowed protest against the election of Pauline Hanson and the rise of xenophobic nationalism in Australia.

Singer Bernard Fanning was interviewed for the 2019 documentary. Looking back on the band’s Internationalist era, his passions were clearly reignited. So could this mean a Powderfinger reunion is on the cards? Rolling Stone Australia have already investigated the possibility after Fanning and co. updated their Facebook profile picture this week.

It’s been more than ten years since Powderfinger’s latest album, Golden Rule. Despite being their fifth consecutive ARIA number one, they announced their intentions to disband less than six months after its release. “With the completion of our last album, Golden Rule, we feel that we have said all that we want to say as a musical group,” said Fanning.

The new Facebook profile picture shows Powderfinger in 2000, the year they released the 8× Platinum Odyssey Number Five. They’ve also changed their Facebook cover photo to an image of the five members onstage, waving to a packed audience.

We’re happy to take that as a clue – Powderfinger will reunite to headline the all-Aussie Falls Festival.