A festival only a stone’s throw away? That’d be Stonefest

Posted on 8 July, 2022

For the past 40 years it’s been the one university activity that everyone can get behind—and tickets have just gone on sale.

Back for the first time since 2019, it’s been three long years since the University of Canberra’s campus has been filled with the music and magic that comes with a crowd all scream-singing along to their favourite artists at Stonefest.

This year that includes Aussie stars Vera Blue, Ruby Fields, Luca Brasi, Hope D, Arno Faraji, Archie and Miroji, who will be hitting the festival’s two stages on Saturday 15 October.

 

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For two of our home-based bands—Archie and Miroji— Stonefest is their festival debut after getting through a couple of tough years of not being able to take to the stage.

“We were saying the other day that on our bucket lists from when were younger was that we would love to play at festivals and now it has happened which is amazing,” explains Miroji vocalist, Gogo.

“This is our first actual festival and I think it’s pretty important to us that it is in Canberra because we are all really proud Canberrans, so the fact our first festival is here is pretty cool,” Archie bassist Liv explains.

“It’s been pretty strange to be a COVID band. We worked out that we’ve now been a band more in the time of COVID than outside of it. So, we’ve had to be dealing with the things like not being able to play in as many live settings as we’d like. But now that everything is opening up, we are more appreciative than ever that we get to play live and with an audience,” Liv explains.

Along with acts from various backgrounds and influences to reflect the diversity of the university’s campus, the female-led force behind the annual music festival is also highlighting female voices, with five of the seven performers in the line-up featuring women.

The event has reinvented itself a couple of times over the decades, from the week-long revelry of the seventies to the one-day-hit we know and love now. But regardless of the name and format—from Stoneweek to Stonefest—it has put a spring in Canberrans’ steps since its inception and brings the best out of our bands.

“Our live performances are where we feel most comfortable—all of us love to perform and be on stage and when we get on stage the energy bouncing off of each other and people who have come to watch is just awesome,” Liv explains.

It also brings out the best of audiences, and there is nothing better than some upbeat tracks to get you out on the dance floor—and that is exactly what Miroji is bringing to the stage.

“It’s dancey and electronic with kind of a few genres thrown in there but it’s basically EDM. We just want to have a fun and good time on stage and put a lot of energy into it, so that’s where we headed with our sound,” Gogo explains.

It probably won’t come as a surprise that through all the festival’s iterations ‘stone’ has remained a constant in the name. It all ties back to 1971, when Stonefest was created to celebrate the laying of the foundation stone by Prime Minister John Gorton in 1968, marking the opening of the Canberra College of Advanced Education, which would later become the University of Canberra in 1990.

And while my number one accessory is currently the thickest puffer jacket known on earth, Stonefest is the light at the end of the tunnel for these winter blues—I’m stripping off the layers and finally adding some festival glitter to my online shopping cart.

First release tickets are available from 10 am today and UC students better get excited—thanks to UCX they get a killer discount! Grab yours from moshtix and continue the tradition!

Feature image ‘Archie’ by Meg Houghton