2018 Big Pineapple Music Festival Review

After winning The People's Choice Award for ‘Festival Of The Year’ at this year’s Queensland Music Awards, the Big Pineapple Music Festival had a lot to live up to.

The festival takes place alongside the iconic Queensland Big Pineapple landmark in Woombye on the Sunshine Coast, and celebrated its seventh year this year (26 May).

A Triple J ferris wheel lit up the festival, with the entire area filled with food, drink and even vintage clothing stands.

Big Pineapple’s costume contest was back this year, with everyone wholeheartedly embracing the pineapple theme; from matching pineapple board shorts to hair dyed yellow and green. Some took it to the next level with banana onesies and kangaroo costumes.

Big Pineapple also had their first ever interactive art installation this year. ‘Pickles Family Funerals’ put on a ‘zombie, ghosts & skeletons workshop’, ‘live burials’ and a ‘mortuary performance’. This installation served as the perfect photo spot for festival-goers and added something special to this already highly successful festival.

Click here to view socials from BPMF.

Compared to the likes of Tired Lion and Wolf Alice, local Sunshine coast trio Fragile Animals kicked off the festival before midday; the band winning the ‘Unearthed x Big Piney’ competition. The band has only been together for a year, but have already released their debut EP ‘Light That Fades’, and played alongside Polish Club and Jebediah.

Kim Churchill took to the Sea Shepherd stage in the early afternoon, everyone singing and dancing along to ‘Second Hand Car’, which was voted into the 2017 Hottest 100. The folk singer was the perfect act to get everyone in a good mood for the rest of the festival.


Shortly after, Perth’s Tired Lion took the Triple J stage and had everyone rocking along to songs from their debut album released at the end of last year as well as earlier singles including ‘I Don’t Think You Like Me’.

The next act to take the Triple J stage was Melbourne’s Northeast Party House. Again, everyone was dancing and singing along with the band; the crowd favourites definitely being ‘Calypso Beach’ and ‘Your House’ from the band’s 2016 album ‘Dare’, and everyone’s all-time favourite ‘Youth Allowance’ from back in 2014.


Blow-up pineapples were thrown around the mosh for the entirety of Northeast Party House’s set and during ‘For You’ confetti was sent off into the crowd.

After Northeast Party House, Brisbane’s Cub Sport took the Sea Shepherd stage. The stage was set with a giant neon ‘Cub Sport’ sign, and the band’s set was accompanied by more confetti and fire on the stage. The band started off with ‘O Lord’ and ‘Hawaiian Party’ from their most recent album, before playing a mixture of songs from their past two albums.


The crowd then went crazy for the band’s 2016 Like A Version cover of Kanye West’s ‘Ultralight Beam’. The set ended with everyone screaming along the lyrics to ‘Come On Mess Me Up’.

Allday was next, his set off to a bit of a rocky start with his microphone being turned off for the first few minutes. The rapper quickly redeemed himself though and kept the party going, even bringing Mallrat onstage to perform ‘Baby Spiders’; their collaboration from last year.


Over on the Pineapple Xpress stage, Luke Million had punters getting groovy with his classic ‘Arnold’ and his 2016 cover of the Strangers Things theme song.

Click here to view band photos from BPMF.

Back on the Triple J stage, Dune Rats drew the biggest crowd of the night so far, the rain not scaring anyone away. Dune Rats have essentially created a collection of Australian festival anthems.


It’s no surprise they can be found on so many line-ups, with crowds chanting along to ‘Red Light Green Light’, ‘Dalai Lama, Big Banana, Marijuana’, and of course ‘Scott Green’.

Illy then performed what he said would be his last show for a while, as he’s heading off to record new music. After Illy, it was time for the biggest act of the night; Violent Soho.


Violent Soho were performing their first show in a while and had the huge crowd going from the very start; starting their set off with 2015’s ‘Like Soda’. Another highlight was ‘Viceroy’, another song from 2016’s ‘WACO’.

The band then played ‘Covered in Chrome’, before ending their set (and 2018’s Big Pineapple Festival) with something a bit slower; ‘OK Cathedral’.