Fruit Bats – formed as the project of Eric D. Johnson (USA) – are one of the most in-demand live acts in indie rock. Eric D. Johnson journeys in from the USA to take to the Castlemaine stage, solo, celebrating their 2026 album The Landfill.

The midwest, particularly the part of the midwest Eric D. Johnson hails from, is a largely flat expanse. Fruit Bats’ June 12, 2026 album The Landfill, released via Merge Records, draws inspiration from the landfill hills scattered across the largely flat Midwestern United States landscape. Some of these man-made hills become parks or trails; for Johnson, they symbolise the emotional weight of the past.

“The mountain that gives us this vantage point is made out of the trash that we’ve created,” he says. On the title track and lead single “The Landfill,” Johnson reflects on “a holy vision / of what could be / and couldn’t be / and could have been”. But what’s truly stunning is how, in his recontouring from could to couldn’t to could have been, he has lost none of the vulnerability that was brought to the foreground of his songwriting by 2025’s solo outing, Baby Man.

Unlike previous Fruit Bats albums shaped over long periods, Baby Man was created spontaneously using stream-of-consciousness “morning pages” that flowed directly into daily recording sessions. The result documented two intensely personal weeks and opened a new immediacy in Johnson’s songwriting that continues throughout The Landfill.

Fruit Bats (USA) solo

Think About You sing songs about Geelong, St Kilda and North Balwyn. They have toured internationally and appeared at major festivals, earning praise from KEXP as "one to watch" and Big Love Records as "a miracle you can't help but hear without realising it". Their first album, Taxi Kids (2022), was produced by Dylan Young (Way Dynamic, Cool Sounds). TAY's sophomore, Don't Die On Me (2024), was engineered by Nao Anzai (Tropical Fuckstorm, Cash Savage). The band's forthcoming LP was mixed and recorded by Nick Huggins (Dirty Three, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) at Resting Bell Studios on the unceded lands of the Wathaurong people of the Kulin Nation. It is set for release later this year.

Taking notes from 80s Australiana guitar pop, Piggietails pull the best bits from every era creating lyrically engaging simplistic songs that still manage to pull you into their personal world.

Supprting them will be twee pop legends Piggietails.

Doors: 9:00

Piggietails : 9:15

Think About You : 10:15

Think About You

Award-winning songwriter Steve Lane and his band The Autocrats deliver a distinctive blend of jangle pop, Americana and hook-laden indie rock, drawing comparisons to Wilco, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, and The Go-Betweens.

Steve Lane & The Autocrats made an impressive debut with their album The Romance of Communication (ABC Music), which was nominated for the Australian Music Prize and named Album of the Week on ABC JJ/Dig Music. As reviewer Isabella Tolhurst observed, "Steve Lane & The Autocrats release an album that has all the tell-tale signs of an Australian band bound for longevity."

More recently, Lane's self-titled 2022 album The Great Imposter, released through Scottish label Last Night From Glasgow (LNFG), reached #2 on the UK Indie Breakers Chart, #5 on the Scottish Albums Chart, and #8 on the UK Vinyl Albums Chart.

His latest release, Where The Rivers Meet (LNFG), was produced by ARIA Award-winning musician and producer Darren Seltmann (The Avalanches) and recorded in central Victoria and Scotland.

For this performance, The Autocrats are a true family affair, featuring Steve's son Kai, daughter Neneh, niece Miette, and longtime mate David Williams (Augie March, Fanning Dempsey National Park).

The Steinbecks were formed when brothers Josh and Joel Meadows disbanded their first group, The Sugargliders, which made sparse, melodic pop songs with ‘disarmingly naïve’ lyrics for legendary UK label Sarah Records. Josh and Joel are joined by Joel’s sons Lloyd and Micah Meadows in this latest iteration of the band. Three quarters of The Steinbecks live and love in Castlemaine.

Steve Lane And The Autocrats + The Steinbecks

Eliza Hull returns to the stage this August for a series of intimate headline shows, performing brand new material with her full band.

Following the release of her acclaimed new single Hotel Room, Hull brings her cinematic, emotionally charged songwriting to exclusive performances in Melbourne and Castlemaine. Rich with atmosphere and unflinching honesty, these shows offer a rare opportunity to experience new music from an artist entering a bold and exciting new creative chapter.

Over the past few years, Hull has established herself as one of Australia's most distinctive songwriters, crafting songs that explore identity and desire with remarkable depth and vulnerability. Her 2023 EP Here They Come was praised by Double J as part of their Best New Music, while her haunting reimagining of Silverchair's Tomorrow for Playing Gracie Darling captured national attention, including praise from Daniel Johns himself.

Alongside her music career, Hull is an acclaimed writer and disability advocate. Earlier this year she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her contribution to music and disability advocacy.

These headline shows arrive fresh off the back of a Victorian tour with Sarah Blasko and recent dates supporting Dan Sultan, marking another exciting chapter for one of Australia's most compelling and captivating artists.

Don't miss the chance to see Eliza Hull up close as she shares new songs, old favourites and the stories in between.

“Eliza Hull has returned with one of the most emotionally powerful songs of her career.” / “Hull remains one of Australia’s most respected and important artistic voices.” - AAA Backstage

"Eliza Hull has built a reputation for turning life's most complicated emotions into songs that feel both deeply personal and universally understood." - Ramona Magazine, Freya Bennett

"one of the most beloved songwriters and important voices" - The Music, Emma Whines

"Ethereal sounds from one of Australia's most distinctive voices." - Sydney Festival

Eliza Hull - Live and Intimate

Skyscraper Stan and the Commission Flats are making a live album! A fixture of the Australian music scene, Skyscraper Stan and his band have garnered a reputation for putting on a scorching live show. Now, following the success of their 2025 album Those Were Days and the relentless touring that followed, they are committing their show to record. The five piece are visiting Castlemaine ahead of the recording days to road test the set. They will perform tracks from across their three critically acclaimed studio albums.

Catch them at the Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine on the 12th of September.

Skyscraper Stan and the Commission Flats - Live Record Recording!

Naarm/Melbourne sextet Shock Corridor announce a national tour in support of their self-titled debut album, due August 12. The run opens August 28 at Melbourne’s Thornbury Theatre and winds through Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory, Canberra, Adelaide, Wonder Mountain Festival in Beechworth, Castlemaine and Brisbane through late September with a one-off Sydney show at Phoenix Central Park on June 24 to preview the record in full.

The album was tracked over seven days at Soundpark Studios with producer Dan Luscombe, a name synonymous with the last decade of Australian guitar music for his work with the Drones, Amyl and the Sniffers, Courtney Barnett and Floodlights, and mixed by Aaron Cupples (Spiritualized, Tropical Fuck Storm, Kirin J Callinan).

Formed in 2019 by six friends with backgrounds in classical strings, jazz, hip-hop and DIY electronics, the band, George (vocals, guitar), Saskia (violin, vocals), Joe (synth, drum machine, trumpet), Henry (bass, trumpet), Ari (guitar) and Paddy (drums), refined a startlingly singular palette through long lockdown rehearsals before emerging onto the Naarm circuit in 2023. Their music borrows the spectral patience of the Dirty Three, the trip-hop weight of Massive Attack and the pent-up theatricality that Australian post-punk seems to manufacture in unusual quantities. Songs build slowly; eruptions, when they come, feel earned.

Earlier singles “Buster” and “Sheet Metal” pulled support from BBC 6 Music, METAL, ASBO and the Line of Best Fit, while FBi Radio recently named the group their Independent Artist of the Week. In December the band sold out The Night Cat (650 capacity) at home and have shared stages with Bleak Squad at the Melbourne Recital Centre and Floodlights on the road.

“We kept the record self-titled because it felt like the widest possible foundation of what Shock Corridor is. A lot of it was written while the world felt increasingly unstable — there was this constant feeling of helplessness, but also a desire to stay connected to the people around you. The album lives in that tension.”

Shock Corridor - Album Tour

Over the past decade, Body Type have established themselves as one of Australia’s most acclaimed and compelling bands. Since forming in Sydney in 2016, they have released two celebrated albums, earned an Australian Music Prize nomination, toured extensively throughout Australia, Europe and the UK, and shared stages with Foo Fighters, Fontaines D.C., Pixies, Big Thief, Warpaint, Sleater-Kinney and Cate Le Bon.

Now, the four-piece return with Tally, their third album and most ambitious work to date. Marking the band’s tenth anniversary, Tally captures a group taking stock, embracing change and pushing their sound into bold new territory while retaining the wit, charm and sharp observations that have become their trademark.

Recorded in Los Angeles with acclaimed producer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Courtney Barnett), Tally draws inspiration from a wide range of sources: the work of artist Louise Bourgeois, misty drives through the Hollywood Hills, 10 years of history as a band. The album transforms the everyday into something surreal, witty and profound while exploring love, friendship, insecurity and the strange beauty hidden within ordinary life.

Body Type - Tally Album Tour

This October and November, Rowena Wise takes her full band on the road across Australia to support her sophomore album, Bad Things Feel Good*. The record is a tender, point-blank look at the pain of transformation and what it means to be flesh and blood — from Melbourne to Brisbane, Sydney to Hobart and beyond.

Written over two years of near-constant touring and recorded live over three days at The Ratshack in Collingwood with producer Rob Muinos (Julia Jacklin, Didirri), the album traces heartbreak, estrangement, and the knottier growing pains of adulthood through candid poetic lyricism and a raw live production. The songs hold space rather than demand attention, and live, they hit even harder.

Since debuting in 2018, she has amassed over 10 million streams, earned airplay across triple j, Double j and Unearthed, and toured extensively across Australia, the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada, supporting artists including Holy Holy, Ball Park Music, Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey. Her 2024 debut album, Senseless Acts of Beauty, was praised by CLASH Magazine as “carefully etched indie folk” and shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize. Her highly anticipated sophomore album, Bad Things Feel Good*, a tender, point-blank meditation on transformation, is out August 7, 2026 via Beloved Records.

"Carefully etched indie folk" — CLASH Magazine

"Fragrant introspection" — FLOOD

Supported by Double J

ROWENA WISE - Bad Things Feel Good Album Launch (Band show)

The Seven Ups celebrate the release of their sixth studio album, Flight, with a special launch show at The Bridge Hotel, Castlemaine. Blending psychedelic jazz, atmospheric funk, modal grooves and warm vintage synths, the Melbourne instrumental outfit stretches from hypnotic jams to expansive psychedelic soundscapes, balancing improvisation with tightly locked grooves.

Released through French label Nice Guys Records, Flight is the band's most ambitious record yet, weaving vintage synths, guitar led ambience and deep rhythmic grooves into a richly layered sound.

Over the past decade, The Seven Ups have toured extensively throughout Australia, performing at festivals including Meredith Music Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival, WOMADelaide and Strawberry Fields, and sharing the stage with artists including The Black Angels, Charles Bradley, The Budos Band and The Bamboos.

The Seven Ups "Flight" Album Launch

Melbourne sister duo Charm of Finches delivers intricate indie-folk that is simultaneously graceful and darkly bewitching. Their seamless blood harmonies traverse melancholy and wonder in equal measure.

After relocating to Scotland and touring extensively throughout the UK, Europe and Canada, the sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes return to Australia to tour their brooding new single Bodysuit ahead of their highly anticipated fifth album, created partly in Australia and partly in Scotland. Catch Charm of Finches while they’re in Australia.

Charm of Finches are winners of the Australian Folk Music Awards Best Folk Album (2022), Music Victoria Best Folk Act (2021) and have been nominated twice for the Australian Music Prize.

“For lovers of tight sibling harmonies, chamber folk, and those who long to be carried-away by a lullaby...” – Ariana Morgenstern KCRW Today's Top Tune

“Charm of Finches sound like they're mining something far more ancient and universal" -Rhythms Magazine

https://www.charmoffinchesband.com/

Charm of Finches | Bodysuit Single Launch

Pony Face return!

After several sold-out (Nebraska) shows earlier this year, Australian indie dreamscape four-piece Pony Face are back with new music. And excited to play the Bridge, the band will perform in this format for the first time in six years. Playing an albums worth of new material as well as some of their number one smash hits… as part of a Vic tour.

Leading the charge is their new single "Expire" — a power-punk, stooges dirge with shades of Dr Jnr. Don't miss this special show!

“The groove is in the spaces in between. They allow the music to breathe with possibilities, their supple songs insinuate themselves into the mind,

their playing fuses them with the imagination. They are so much more than the sum of their parts”

Stephen Walker, RRR FM

Across several albums Pony Face has consistently delivered weighty musical explorations, with touches of psych, kraut, jagged electronic elements and a deep, rock timelessness.

Wrapped up with a sense of the improvised - with band members so intimately across one another's playing - Pony Face are assuring in their ability, thrilling in curiosity, and hold nothing back. One of my absolute favourite acts. Their albums translates to a mesmerising and solid live show.

Maddy Mcfarlane PBS FM

"Pony Face are pure class. Unhurried sonic explorers looking for light even in the dark, quiet corners of song. Despite their impressive back catalogue, one has the sense their best work is still to come..."

Karen Leng, Double J

"The first time I ever heard Pony Face I was hypnotized and agitated all at once. I couldn't move until I inhaled every last, achingly beautiful sound, ...Looking very forward to whatever they do next.”

Fee B Squared, RRR FM

Bridge Hotel Castlemaine

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