12-band music festival coming to Mount Duneed Estate

INDIE legends Pavement will headline a new two-stage music festival that will launch at Mount Duneed Estate in March next year.

Tent Pole: A Musical Jamboree will feature a curated lineup of 12 bands at the Waurn Ponds winery’s newly developed Top Paddock site.

Promoters are describing the March 4 festival as “a cross-generational, neo-nostalgic celebration and gathering for like-minded music, art and culture lovers; the weird, the wonderful, the outsiders and everyone in between” with “iconic, indie, lo-fi, hi-fi, post-punk, alternative, renegade rock across two stages”.

Pavement are one of the most popular and influential bands to come out of the American underground in the past three decades and last toured Australia in 2010.

The band – Stephen Malkmus, Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, Mark Ibold, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West – have just celebrated the 30th anniversary of seminal 1992 debut album Slanted and Enchanted.

Joining Pavement will be indie-rock royalty Spiderbait, Geelong legends Magic Dirt, alt-pop-rock favourites Floodlights, San Diego rock’n’soulers The Schizophonics, Northern Territory rockers Black Rock Band and punk trio Clamm, with more acts to be revealed soon.

Regional music promoters OK Motels will take over the second Tent Pole stage, curating a line-up celebrating music, nostalgia and the great Aussie road trek.

Tent Pole is the first collaboration between festival promoters Michael Newton from Roundhouse Entertainment (A Day on the Green), Brian “BT” Taranto from Love Police (Out On The Weekend and Boogie) and and Johann Ponniah from I OH YOU (Out Of Bounds).

“After 21 years and nearly 500 shows, it’s exciting to launch a new event to complement the A Day on the Green experience,” Mr Newton said

It’s been fantastic to curate a smaller boutique event with BT and Johann. The Zoom calls have been fun so far.

“Mt Duneed Estate is a great site, and with more bands to come we look forward to firmly stamping Tent Pole as a mainstay on the Victorian festival calendar for many years to come.”

“Let’s go back to those gold sounds with Pavement on the Surf Coast and a bunch of other sweet acts we wanna see. That sounds pretty good,” Mr Taranto said

“Let’s call it Tent Pole and deliver a sweet event with a lovin’ team who all bring good s*** to the scene. See ya in March.”

Tickets for Tent Pole go on sale on Wednesday, September 21 at 1pm from Ticketmaster, with A Day on the Green, AAMI and Love Police members’ pre-sale beginning Monday, September 19.