Music

Your guide to Melbourne's best concerts and live gigs this year. 

Off the back of their performance at HoMie's new Tiny Desk-inspired Store Sessions, Bad//Dreems chat to music writer Ben Madden about playing stripped-back music, writing a new record and finding rapport with a certain ilk of Aussie male.

This spring, Harvest Rock will make its much-anticipated return to Rymill & King Rodney Parks / Murlawirrapurka & Ityamai-Itpina, and the two-day music, food and wine festival has just unleashed a monster lineup that’ll have you booking annual leave before you get to the end of this article. 

Meredith Music Festival is back for 2025, and they’ve just dropped a banging line-up to follow the events of last year.

Get ready to ditch your summer holiday plans, Tomorrowland spin-0ff CORE is officially coming to Melbourne. 

After selling out in record time, today, it was announced that the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper will be adding extra Sydney and Melbourne shows to his December tour. 

Bendigo has seriously diversified its portfolio since its opulent gold rush era. Now with an impressive food scene, buzzing creative community and regional charm aplenty, it's the weekend getwaway from the city you need to take. 

The celebration of art, light, music, and cutting-edge technology has returned for its fifth edition, with more kaleidoscopic installations, late-night gigs set to trippy projections, and a new program of dining events. 

Kiwi pop icon Lorde has finally dropped dates for the Australian and New Zealand leg of her tour. 

Skip the south side/north side arguments this weekend, because Melbourne's city centre is a brunch destination of its own right. Here are the best (neutral ground) spots for brunch in Melbourne CBD. 

There's nothing quite like the music scene in Melbourne. Any night of the week in pretty much any stretch of the town, you can catch live tunes—be it howling, foot-stomping rock 'n roll in sticky-floored pubs, sultry jazz in booth-seated lounges, or dirty techno at one of the many dens and d-floors in town.

FISHER's Out 2 Lunch Festival with Vodafone is back, and we have the insider scoop on how to grab up presale tickets. 

The world would be a far better place if there were more festivals like Ability Fest, but for now, we can relish in the fact that the country’s most inclusive event is making a triumphant return this October, taking over not just Melbourne but making an exciting debut in Brisbane.

To help you start mapping out your next New South Wales adventure, we’ve rounded up a bunch of the most exciting events to mark in your diaries.

Dipping into the decade of nostalgia, Yellowjackets on Paramount+ is back for another nail-biting season.

For artists like Isaac who are drawn to creating, music is undeniably in their blood, so we've teamed up with Australian Red Cross Lifeblood to dive a little deeper and uncover the passion for collaboration, live performance and a drive to contribute to the world around him that pump an unmistakable rhythm through his veins. 

We’ve linked up with Australian Red Cross Lifeblood to take you on a deep dive into Australian artists with music in their blood, and there’s no better place to start than with LK (her dad is Paul Kelly, and if that doesn’t suggest she was born with music flowing through her veins, we don’t know what does.)

Summer in Sydney is looking the goods. After a successful traffic-stopping inaugural festival in January of this year, it's just been announced ELEVATE Sydney will be returning next month to celebrate summer and the new year. 

From grass-stomping day festivals and one-off intimate gigs to globally-revered performances and three-day camp-outs, you’re spoilt for choice; no matter where you are in Australia, we guarantee these music events are well worth the flight, train or road trip convoy with your crew. 

Nestled in the beating heart of Surfers Paradise, we’ve found the perfect place for the ultimate fun day out. Think: epic games, live sport and a total foodie nirvana. So where can you find this awesome spot? Perched on the corner of Surfers Paradise Boulevard and Cavill Mall, boasting a 100-metre frontage opposite the world-famous Surfers Paradise Beach, is Paradise Centre. Home to over 90 stores, an alfresco dining precinct and a buzzing entertainment hub, gather your crew and make tracks here stat.

Vivid LIVE is the perfect opportunity to discover your new favourite emerging artist amongst the much anticipated 2022 live music line up. 

Needless to say, the food in Melbourne is some world class grub, in fact we’ve built a bit of a rep for having one of the richest and most diverse culinary scenes on the planet. The question on our lips though is—does the carpet match the plates?

It’s been a couple of spins around the sun since we’ve been able to crack into the timeless tradition of the summer music festival. With restrictions at an ease, there’s enough day boogies, warehouse soirees and out-of-town celebrations to swing a cat at. 

If you’ve fallen into a bit of a playlist funk recently, we hear you. Often it can feel like the ol’ algorithm is starting to hit a snag, serving you up the same beats on repeat. So, to help prevent a playlist flatliner and bring on those summer vibes, we asked a few of the Urban List team to share what they’re spinning.

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In 2017, Kiama four-piece indie rock band Pacific Avenue was born, but their history goes way back.

We caught up with CIVIC and spoke to Jim over a couple of Sailor Jerry bevs about good vegan dinners, getting tattooed by Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Danny Young, and how they’re planning to go ‘all in’ and finally celebrate their album release.

At just 23 years of age, Naarm singer and artist Kaiit (she/they/he) is one of the most exciting talents to grace the Australian music scene and bless our ears with her sweet and honeyed vocals. 

Isol-Aid Homegrown is a collaboration providing creative and financial support to emerging acts across Australia and New Zealand.

Leaps and Bounds showcase of the sheer talent that’s smattered liberally just north of the Yarra river. In its third year, Leaps and Bounds is making, well, leaps and bounds with a festival that’s as diverse as it's ever been. You’d be remiss not to explore the program to its fullest—which you can do so here—however there are several unmissable events in the near two-week celebration of all things audible, visual, sensory and beyond. Scope them out here:

Over summer, Fed Square was transformed into a bustling green oasis. And now, everyone’s favourite cultural hub is about to receive a winter glow-up of epic proportions with an undeniably French twist.

 One of the world’s most acclaimed musicals, Hamilton, is coming to Melbourne.

It’s been a bit dry out there on the festival front for the last 12 months, we all know the story of COVID et cetera. But Victorians have stuck through it and now it’s time to party—safely, of course. There are plenty of local festivals to hit up over the next couple of months, so get in the car, get the glitter out, have a boogie and live your best festival life. 

We sit down with Australian singer-songwriter Thandi Phoenix to uncover what makes a luxe long lunch.

We sit down with Touch Sensitive to chat about the perfect movie night set-up.

It has just been announced that Flight Facilities and Mallrat will be joining For The Love’s epic line-up at URBNSURF, so grab your mates and get ready for some seriously good surfing and sounds.  

Brunswick Music Festival is back with an impressive line-up of local talent spanning over ten huge days. From Friday 5 March to Monday 16 March, beloved Brunswick venues will play host to a plethora of live music, with all tickets $10 or free. That’s right, ten bucks or free.

It’s true, our love for hip hop runs deep. We’re big fans of the genre’s boundary-breaking, rebellious attitude (perhaps a love that’s been magnified after living through the insanity that was 2020) and it’s the leading part in the revival of '90s streetwear fashion. 

On one hand, the capacity limits at NGV can be seen as a sort of silver lining in that you can wander through the Triennial with at least a few square metres around you, though on the other hand, it means tickets are somewhat of a scarcity—that’s why the NGV is bringing back its evening sessions for an entire month beginning on Friday 15 January.

With indoor capacity limits still in place, many of our cultural institutions are taking it outdoors. The latest to announce their iteration of the open-air celebrations is the Melbourne Museum with Summer Sessions, and the program is a doozy.

Those who rang in the 2019/2020 new year at Sun Cycle will recall quite the rave. Looking back, anyone would have thought we were partying like it was one of the last festivals of our time. Well, after a year hiatus, Sun Cycle returns to give it another nudge on Saturday 30 January (restrictions permitting). 

Melbourne Music Week is set to return in December, and this year, the program will be spread over three months to revitalise the local arts scene.

And now for some good news, the summer iteration of Australia’s most hedonistic festival, Mona Foma, will return to Tasmania late January from Friday 15 January to Sunday 17 January in Launceston, and Friday 22 January to Sunday 24 January in Hobart.