While live music seems like a hazy distant memory for many of us right now, the absolute legends behind UNIFY Gathering are casting their eyes forward to better days, announcing yesterday that not only will the even return to Tarwin Lower from January 21 - 24 next year - but it will also feature an all-Australian lineup.
An Aussie festival that filled some of the void left by the likes of Big Day Out, Soundwave and those who came before, UNIFY ultimately grew since its inception in 2015 to a multi-day juggernaut celebrating the gamut of punk, hardcore and metal music from around the globe. And while musicians all over the world are equally grappling with the current state of their industry, UNIFY have chosen to publicly gift a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel for the locals doing it rough, from the artists to the crews and everyone in between, and have declared the 2021 incarnation of the event to be officially an Aussie affair. More details still to come, but for now we can all hope for brighter times ahead.
Festival statement is below.
FESTIVAL STATEMENT FROM UNFD:
It’s no secret that the music industry is one of the hardest hit industries by the current situation, and our hearts go out to the artists, crew, agents and managers that have lost their entire touring plans with no certainty of when it is coming back. This festival launched in 2015 with entirely Australian artists, and we’ve had the pleasure of having pretty much every heavy artist in the country perform across our six events. Now we want to invite all of them back for a celebration of this community and everything it provides. We hope to get back as many artists as we can. We’ll be pushing dates back a week to make the January 21 - 24 weekend in 2021.
In all of this chaos, one message stands as true as ever: music saves lives. It’s the inspiration in our lives and it’s the basis of communities that can band together to survive through tough times. We wanted this announcement out now to declare our intentions, and give the people in our community something to look forward to.
While UNIFY prides itself on connecting with the global heavy music community, it was with the local community of artists, crew, agents and managers that we launched our festival in 2015. In that first year, it felt like most of the Australian heavy music community got together to create one of the most memorable weekends of our lives. At the time, Australian heavy music artists were mostly unable to play festivals in AUS. We launched UNIFY because we wanted to see what it would be like for The Amity Affliction, Northlane and In Hearts Wake to play 40 minute sets at night at a festival. Looking at that lineup, it included many of the bands that defined the next half decade of Australian music, and that poster has become an iconic moment in the history of this community.
We are also aware that Australian artists are right now doing their best to reschedule current dates and look for opportunities that can work once life resumes. As such, UNIFY will also have no restriction on artists wanting to do tour dates surrounding our dates. We also won’t worry about putting through artists that played last year or the year before. It’s not about exclusivity for us, it’s about community.
We will be back with more details soon, but for now please join the event page to stay up to date as we roll out.
UNIFY 2020 OFFICIAL WRAP UP VIDEO
BY TIANA SPETER