By Dennis Atkins

The hard feelings, the scars, the money lost, the bitter disappointment, the empty Easter weekend, the two-timing, cheating and lying are all still there.

Yet in place of Byron Bay Bluesfest appeared a somewhat spontaneous, almost organic sprouting of gigs, from Brunswick Heads to Lennox Heads, with Byron Bay at its centre. It was there where people saw a roof-raising blast of a show.

At the Byron Theatre, a gig that was supposed to be a highlight of Bluesfest, once the best festival around but now just a financially and morally bankrupt shell, carried on the torch of the blues.

The legendary Backsliders presented a show honouring Rob Hirst, the 70-year-old drummer, singer and songwriter, co-founder of Midnight Oil (with Jim Moginie and Andrew James).

Hirst had died at the end of January, just days after receiving an Order of Australia medal, his determination to play at Byron not enough to make it happen. There wasn’t a musician in Australia who didn’t feel Hirst’s long-time coming death, succumbing to three years of mental and physical warfare against the usually more swift grim reaper of pancreatic cancer.

The Backsliders’ Hirst gig stands as an endpoint for the once great, now disgraced Byron Bluesfest, and a greater curtain call is hard to imagine.

Now, a month and a half later, just 100 kms north of Tyagarah Farm, adjacent to the M1 highway, the inheritor of a valid claim as the best blues festival in Australia, the Blues on Broadbeach long weekend, is on again between the sea and the M1.

Blues on Broadbeach is celebrating its first quarter century, 25 years of blues-soaked music, delivering what’s almost exclusively a free festival in which bands, solo and duo acts, play in and around the Broadbeach Mall. Headliners turn up on the two big stages at Karrawa Park, metres from the ocean, and Victoria Park, in the shadow of the Crown Casino, alongside other acts, with varying levels of recognition and different places on the stairway to greater fame.

Unfortunately, the Backsliders aren’t on the bill on the Gold Coast, but the line-up is first class, a handful of top drawer international acts, the cream of the crop from around Australia and, as expected, the very best from the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales and the talent pool around South East Queensland.

Our newsletter has covered the amazing career of blues keyboardist Lachy Doley, himself celebrating his 10th anniversary since a mainstage appearance at Broadbeach went viral around the world, attracting 20 million sets of eyeballs and ears and paving the way to a permanent place as Joe Bonamassa’s piano and organ maestro.

Elsewhere, the stars at Broadbeach shine with Ruthie Foster, a Texas-born church-trained singer whose room-filling vocals have earned her comparisons with greats like Aretha Franklin and Etta James.

Foster made a collection of critically acclaimed records and earned multiple Grammy nominations. In 2024, she made a “back-to-the-roots-of-blues’ move, signing with the Memphis label Sun Records, and picking up her first Best Contemporary Album Grammy for the album Mileage.

Elsewhere, music festival regulars but Broadbeach debutantes, the Teskey Brothers, will appear with special guests Judith Hall and Ash Grunwald, Cold Chisel alumni and distinctive singer-songwriter Ian Moss is back again as are Melbourne soul/funk outfit, The Bamboos.

Another Grammy winner, MonoNeon, a one-time collaborator with Prince, will light up the festival with his colourful outfits and his propulsive funky bass sound.

There will be some dancing and jumping when the New York City blues street preachers, Daddy Long Legs, serve up their crazy, mixed-up gumbo of styles, from Cajun to field hollering, with detours into slowed-down Chicago blues and backroads Mississippi juke-joint stomping.

Another American blues artist, the Louisiana-born, Blind Robert Finley, can whisper his lyrics, summon up a growl from within and sail away with a falsetto that lifts hearts and souls. Discovered busking in Arkansas, Finley soon found himself working with blues musician and amateur anthropologist Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys, on collaborations that produced two acclaimed albums, Going Platinum! And Sharecropper’s Son.

Grace Cummings might not fit everyone’s idea of a blues artist, but this Melbourne folk singer has a reputation that spans the globe. Having played festivals such as SXSW and the southern England circuit of top-shelf emerging and established indie and folk players, Grace has earned praise in major music publications such as Rolling Stone, American Songwriter and Britain’s NME. NME described Cummings’s voice as “beautiful, soaring with an unholy beauty … breathtaking”.

Full details of the Blues on Broadbeach festival, including all the acts playing over four days from May 14 to 17, can be found at the official website, https://bluesonbroadbeach.com/.