Black Bird Hum's All-Time-Best Festival Experiences

This festival diary for Sydney reggae band Black Bird Hum covers some of the biggest, best and also weirdest festivals they’ve played.

Caloundra Music Festival

It’s day four on a north-coast tour run for us for our latest single 'Down' and we arrive in Caloundra a few hours before we’re due to play.

We soak up some of the festival vibes, catching the Nth Power and their amazing drummer Nikki Glaspie, Hot Potato Band and later Thundamentals.


Our set goes down great in a sweaty tent on the hill. Our sax player Jimmy greens out after the show and we find him in the bushes later that night, pulse faint. A good night’s sleep sorts him out and he’s ready to go the next day.

Marrickville Festival

Another one on tour for our recent single 'Down' and it’s your classic close-down-the-street community festival.

Sydney’s inner-west knows how to put these kind of festivals on. Surry Hills and Newtown are other good ones.


We get our set in to a huge crowd before the rain comes and the whole thing is washed out. Luckily, Lazybones across the street is open so we sneak our fried haloumi chips from one of the stalls up there and check out some big-band jazz.

Nimbin Mardi Grass

The fact that the stage we played on was called the Hash Bowl Stage probably tells you everything you need to know about this festival (or ‘protestival’ as they call it).

The otherwise sleepy town of Nimbin comes alive for a weekend every year to celebrate all things weed. As well as some great music that included Nattali Rize and Bullhorn, we get it on at the Hemp Olympics, check out the Kombi Konvoy and a Polite Squad who square up against the actual police in the Hemp Rope Tug O’ War.


Much deep knowledge is learned and quickly forgotten over the course of the weekend.

ForeignDub Reggae Carnival Market Day

This one is a home-town festival for us, and one of the biggest events on the Sydney reggae calendar. They get in a massive sound system, have a dancehall dance comp and we play alongside some killer acts like King Tide and The Strides.

Peats Ridge Festival

It’s back in our embryonic days and we sneak onto a Peats Ridge Festival line-up alongside Angus and Julia Stone, Matt Corby, Trentemoller and Jinja Safari.

The festival was beautiful, nuzzled in a picturesque valley just north of Sydney. It was a truly mystical experience, despite being 50 degrees.


They had a few amazing years before the weather gods conspired, so viciously against it that it was wiped off the Australian festival landscape for good.