The full Writers Weekend schedule and extra tickets for Mogwai and Logue Lake are among a diverse line-up of new releases as we count down to Perth Festival 2024.
With just over two months until Festival first night on 9 February, new acts have jumped on board The Rechabite’s 19-night sonic voyage around the world with some of the hottest contemporary music stars from near and far at the Northbridge venue.
Local collective GARBAGE returns for an electrifying double-header dance party with Berlin-based powerhouse CEM and Umfang, a staple of Brooklyn's thriving underground electronic scene.
On our Festival final night, California’s Thee Sacred Souls bring their sweet Southern Californian soul to the stage for their Australian debut. The San Diego trio’s sound is velvet-smooth but their performance is full of energy and will have audiences grooving to their deeply danceable retro soul vibes.
They add their names to a jam-packed Rechabite program that already includes DOMi and JD BECK (France/USA), Greentea Peng (UK), Lonnie Holley, Moor Mother & Irreversible Entanglements (USA), Michael Rother & Friends (Germany) and Flewnt’s Boorloo Block Party, among many others.
We’re taking the Festival out of our regular haunts and bringing it to Perth’s best-loved all ages venue, The Y HQ, for a Prom Night party to remember. Perth’s own Pookie is bringing her ferocious bars, authentic afro-jazz with hip hop melodies and nonchalant attitude to this free night of music and fun.
Image: Festival favourites Mogwai.
Festival favourites Mogwai have answered fans’ pleas with a second show at The Rechabite, Ludovico Einaudi has added a third concert to his Festival appearances at Perth Concert Hall, and more tickets are now available for the highly anticipated WA cabin-in-the-woods stage thriller Logue Lake.
Curated by peak writing body Writing WA, the full program is now available for Writers Weekend at the State Library of WA from Friday 23 February to Sunday 25 February.
Australian music icon Deborah Conway will provide a special Writers Weekend opening night performance of songs and stories from her sensational new memoir Book of Life. That will unleash a packed program of more than 30 panels, workshops, readings, performances and conversations over the weekend.
Highlights include a spotlight on Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Jane Smiley, the SLWA’s Story Place activations for children and a range of exciting guests including Singapore-based Mok Zining, 2023 Miles Franklin winner Shankari Chandran, Christos Tsiolkas, A.J. Betts, Brenda Matthews, Holden Sheppard, James Foley, Isobel Bevis, Natasha Lester, Rachel Johns, Chemutai Glasheen, Niki Savva, Madison Godfrey, The West Australian’s Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie and many others.
Image: Australian music icon Deborah Conway.
A special pre-weekend program will also see special sessions at the City of Perth Library, Perth Town Hall and Centre for Stories whet festival-goers’ appetites from Tuesday 20 February.
STRUT Dance has unveiled its free Perth Moves 10-day dance hub program, including morning mediations, yoga and low-impact Mature Moves dance classes to a Jungle Book reimagined family dance workshop, Deep Soulful Sweats night exercise sessions, an all-age, all-style dance battle, social dance classes and late-night DJs.
And tickets are still available for R&B superstar Sampha’s soul-fuelled finale to close out the Festival in blissful style at Supreme Court Gardens on March 3. The Mercury-Prize winner will be supported by magnetic triple-Grammy Award nominee Nai Palm, known for her work as the leader of the magnetic Hiatus Kaiyote. Also on the final weekend, hip hop/afrobeat dynamo Sampa The Great and her powerhouse band will get the gardens jumping, with neo-soul singer Kaiit in support on March 1.
As the sun sets on Perth Festival 2024, these will be two must-see shows to experience under the stars on the nights either side of the March 2 Lotterywest Closing Event, Under the Same Sun, which features songs of nature and nurture, mothers and the sun.
Perth Festival runs from Friday 9 February to Sunday 3 March 2024. Lotterywest Films is currently running through to Sunday 31 March 2024.
Bookings and more information here.