By Steve Ford.
Blue Mountains Music Festival 2025, Katoomba 14-16 March 2025.
All photos by Steve Ford.
Katoomba, at the top of the Blue Mountains, is an easy drive from Sydney, but a world away from the noise and bustle. Quaint and arty, with breathtaking natural beauty at the end of the street, it’s a great location for a music festival.
This was the 28th Blue Mountains Music Festival, blessed by fine weather (hot by Mountains’ standards) and good crowds.
The festival is always held in mid-March, on the weekend following Port Fairy and WOMADelaide. Many of the artists have already met up at Port Fairy, adding to the camaraderie of this friendliest of festivals. It’s big enough to attract some marquee names, but relaxed and compact. You’ll see most artists watching shows and chatting with punters over the weekend.
The festival precinct is centred around Katoomba Public School and the adjacent RSL Club, with five stages at the school and one in the club. The sixth and seventh stages are at the Palais Royale and the Carrington Hotel, short walks away. The main stage – the Big Top – is superb, with great sound, large capacity, professional lighting and screens either side of the stage. Since the rebuilding of the RSL some years ago, however, the site lacks space for a second large stage, which is badly needed. All the performance spaces have seating, which suits the older demographic. The sound at every stage is excellent.
The festival began as the Blue Mountains Folk Festival and is – like Port Fairy – largely a folk fest at its core, with nods to other roots genres, including jazz and blues. There are, of course, some artists who colour outside the lines. The long-established template – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – includes multiple acts from Canada and Ireland. Apart from the music program, the Poet’s Breakfast, morning workshops and Heartland Conversations (artist interviews) are long-standing fixtures.
The incredible Ruthie Foster made the cover of the festival program, as she did when first here in 2008. Ruthie was, indeed, the standout of the weekend, playing two packed shows in the Big Top. The duo format with keyboard wizard Scottie Miller, her long-time collaborator, worked extremely well. Ruthie’s soaring reading of Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” was … no, I can’t think of a better adjective. (I missed it, but Ruthie was the guest at Sunday’s Heartland Conversation. She was mightily impressed by interviewer Gregg Borschmann).
The quintet of Australian jazz icon Vince Jones also played two shows in the Big Top, Pianist Matt McMahon has been a regular in the Mountains in recent years and is one of my favourite Oz musicians. I’d not heard tenor saxophonist John Mackey previously but was immediately attracted to his soulful playing. Every solo – including those by drummer James Hauptman and bassist Karl Dunnicliff – drew enthusiastic applause. Jones was in good humour and great voice and chose a good mix of originals and standards.
The biggest crowd of the weekend was for Vika and Linda, playing in prime time on Saturday. Their previous appearance, in 2019, was low key, with the late Dion Hirini accompanying them on acoustic guitar. This time round they were able to give a career-spanning set the full treatment by a four-piece band.
Perennials Tex Perkins and Matt Walker closed the Big Top on Sunday, also to a full house, with a mix of blues, covers and originals.
One-man-band Kim Churchill played the first Big Top set on Sunday, drawing a big early afternoon crowd, and the longest merch line of the weekend. His is the poster boy for infectious enthusiasm.
Melbourne folkie Kris Mizzi may have played one of the gigs of his life. Called up as a late replacement, he got his chance on the main stage and grabbed it with both hands. There’s something magical about the sound of one person with a guitar filling the air and holding the attention of a big audience, and this was a moment. He simply beamed at the end of his set, humbly receiving a standing ovation.
Ugandan-born John Muq, whose home is now Austin, Texas, also thrilled the crowd with just his voice and guitar. Charming and self-effacing, he has good-humoured ease with an audience. I suspect we’ll see him back in Australia before long.
This was the first festival appearance for The East Pointers, long a staple on the Oz circuit (with multiple appearances at Woodford). It was their first tour for these Canadian lads since the passing of bandmate Koady Chaisson. They did him proud. Fellow Canadians Old Man Luedecke and David Francey both turned in splendid sets, leavened with a lot of laughs.
Amongst those who would have shone on the big stage were Scotland’s Dean Owens, Ireland’s Siomha, and our own Radical Son.
Dean Owens has been the most popular UK act in the AmericanaUK Readers Poll for four years running. He immediately put me in mind of Calexico, with whom he recorded his 2023 album, Sinner’s Shrine. (I also got a Perry Keyes vibe, perhaps because his hardscrabble youth in Leith mirrors Keye’s life in Sydney.) Owen’s Sinners appears to have a loose, floating lineup but this quartet version sounded like they’d been together for years. Lyle Watt shone on lead guitar.
Siomha (pronounced Shee-va) describes her music as “cosmic, folk-informed, jazz-tinged, post-pop”, which pretty much nails it. I’ve been listening to her “Infinite Spaces” album while I’ve been typing and it’s a real find.
I’d previously seen Radical Son only at a tribute to Archie Roach, where he made the most of a limited opportunity. He was superb, his reading of Frank Yamma’s “She Cried” being one of the truly memorable moments of the weekend.
I’d been looking forward to young English singer-guitarist Katie Spencer, from Hull. Neither the Kitchen Garden Stage nor The Shed were ideal for her delicate playing and performance style, but I was won over. I’m loving her album “Edge Of The Land”.
My festival ended with 18-year-old Irish lass, Muireann Bradley, who was a delight. There’s no little irony in this sweet kid singing deep country blues by Memphis Minnie, Fred McDowell and Blind Blake. Her stagecraft is a work in progress, her vocals will get stronger, but her playing is already phenomenal. Most interesting, perhaps, was her version of John Fahey’s “Sligo River Blues”, which she made her own. The Blues Room at the RSL was full for her show, and they adored her.
Sobering to think that Muireann Bradley wasn’t born when I first made my way to the Blue Mountains Music Festival!
