If you’re a music fan and anywhere near the internet over the weekend, you already know that Glastonbury 2014 has been providing plenty of musical highlights.

With hundreds of bands on the iconic UK music festival’s three-day lineup, including the controversy surrounding co-headliners Metallica, there’s been plenty to cover at Glastonbury.

What hasn’t been getting as much international attention however is how the handful of Australian performers – including Courtney Barnett, Jagwar Ma, The Preatures, Ngaiire, Money For Rope, Melbourne Ska Orchestra, The Shaolin Afronauts and more – have been up to – that’s where we come in.

After digging around social media and overseas press on-ground at this year’s Glasto, we’ve put together a little report on the musical ambassadors doing their part in the name of Australian music.

Courtney Barnett

The Melbourne singer-songwriter was working hard at Glastonbury, performing a set each day of Glastonbury 2014, starting with an afternoon slot on Friday at the Park Stage. The 55-minute set was streamed live online via BBC6, but thanks to one organised YouTuber, you can watch Ms Barnett’s full 12-song setlist in full below.

“I knocked my head backstage, I might have concussion,” Barnett worryingly told the crowd shortly after arriving on-stage but forged ahead with her faithful backing band, The Courtney Barnetts, to deliver a set that was hailed by many as an early highlight. According to NME, the biggest crowd responses were reserved for breakout singles ‘Avant Gardener’ and closing number ‘History Eraser’. Sandwiched between them was two brand new songs (‘Pedastal’ and ‘Pedicure’) presumably taken from Barnett’s forthcoming full-length debut album, which is “all recorded and it sounds mad,” as she told DIY Mag recently.

Barnett also conducted a short interview at the muddy Glastonbury grounds with The Guardian‘s Tim Jonze (the journalist who invoked the ire of Lana Del Ray after her ‘I wish I was dead’ interview). The internationally buzzing songsmith – who shared an image of her muddy boots following her Glastonbury debut – is now headed to Amsterdam to continue her international touring duties.

Jagwar Ma

The psychedelically-inflected Sydney dance-rock duo were already earmarked as “the next Tame Impala” at last year’s Glastonbury, and this year the band compounded the British press’s love for them. Also playing the Park Stage on Saturday at 5pm (one of two sets by the band while Jono Ma played a DJ set on Sunday night), Jagwar Ma delivered a nine-song set to the rain-drenched Worthy Farm attendees.

Joining the band for their final three numbers was old mate Stella Mozgawa, the drummer for Warpaint and a fellow Aussie native, who helped out on ‘Come Save Me’ (which you can watch in full below), ‘Four’, and ‘The Throw’, which included a shout-out to Jagwar Ma’s #1 celebrity fan: Noel Gallagher. “I’d like to dedicate this to Mr Noel Gallagher wherever you are, thank you” said frontman Jono Ma before their set-closer.

The Preatures

Still flush from winning over US festival audiences and dropping the first taste of their debut album, the Sydney pop rock five-piece had a 1pm slot on the John Peel Stage on Sunday, “bringing more and more fans into the tent as their set rolled on,” according to NME

Front woman Isabella Manfredi earned the most attention from social media, displaying all her natural rock star charisma as well as her feminist credentials, dedicating ‘Threat’ to “all the ladies in the audience.” They also earned an odd comparison as “Australia’s version of Haim“, pulled out some new material, provided a soundtrack for those who wanted to “dance really badly” and concluded their set with award-winning hit, ‘Is This How You Feel?’

Manfredi also earned the thumbs up from Brian Jonestown Massacre’s legendary leader, Anton Newcombe, who tweeted his admiration for The Preatures during their set before taking a backstage selfie with The Preatures singer later on, returning the favour by letting the band watch Brian Jonestown Massacre side of stage. Oh, and The Preatures were fans of Dolly Parton’s set too.

“We just played our first show at Glastonbury and it was INSANE,” wrote Ngaiire in an enthusiastic Facebook post on Friday, after having completed a 50-minute set at the La Pussy Parlure Nouveau tent in front of a fairly packed throng. “We were only expecting 10 people to come to our slot and then BOOM! These people came and started cheering the second we started line checking,” added the Sydney-via-PNG songsmith.

“Big big love to the person who was waving the PNG flag down the front. My heart wanted to burst. Big love to all the Australians that turned up and all the people from all over the world that turned up.”

To help make the costly trip, Ngaiire performed in a stripped-down set-up (as a small photo gallery on Facebook shows), making the most of her UK visit by catching up with “Adele’s music director and writing partner to Sia” to work on material for a new album, singing with the Violent Femmes, and escaping the rain with British singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas.

Money For Rope

Last but not least, Melbourne’s dual-drumming rock monsters have been enjoying their European touring. Earlier this month they opened for Gary Clark Jr at London’s O2 Academy, then took off for Spain where they performed 9 shows in 10 Days, before looping back to Glastonbury where they enjoyed a mid-morning set at the John Peel Stage on Friday before heading off to catch Courtney Barnett’s afternoon set.

Money For Rope also got some major blog love from Killing Moon (in a write-up of their killer single ‘Ten Times’) and continue Europe through to mid-September.


(Source: Facebook)

Vance Joy

The Hottest 100-topping singer-songwriter’s midday slot on the Park Stage on Saturday was a hotly-tipped one to watch by many Brits, including Fortitude Magazine pegging it as the “most chilled out lunch you’ll probably have over the week” and The Independent noting the Melbournite would “appeal to fans of Ben Howard.”

All chiefly due to Vance Joy’s home-storming hit, the uke-led ‘Riptide’, having churned up a storm on the UK Charts. Joy, aka James Keogh, also checked in to BBC to perform the number solo as part of their Glastonbury broadcast.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine