Brisbane Winter Sessions

Overview

When Brisbane Winter Sessions was born back in 2021 in the thick of the early pandemic, the River City's live music scene needed the kind of love that only people heading out to see gigs can bring. Three years later, stay-at-home orders and venue restrictions may no longer be a daily reality, but the industry is still struggling in the aftermath of COVID-19's impact. Case in point: the heartbreaking closure of Fortitude Valley institution The Zoo, which shut its doors forever in July.

Brisbane doesn't lack in reasons to catch live tunes every weekend — and every day of the week as well — but there's nothing like a festival to encourage everyone to spend their nights checking out bands. That was Brisbane Winter Sessions' original aim, too, and it remains now that it's back for its latest run across Monday, August 5–Sunday, August 18, 2024.

Two weeks, 70-plus acts, 15 venues: that's the maths behind this year's event. Brisbane Winter Sessions is headed not only to The Tivoli, The Triffid, The Princess Theatre, The Brightside and Lefty's Music Hall, but also to Black Bear Lodge, Greaser Bar, La La Land, The Junk Bar and The Bearded Lady — and to California Lane, Can You Keep a Secret, It's Still a Secret, The Cave Inn and Kemp Place Park as well.

The lineup includes overseas and local names, with Ride, Fazerdaze, Last Dinosaurs and Mercury Rev leading the bill, plus everyone from Katie Noonan, Tyrone Noonan, Karl S Williams, Bean Magazine and Liminal, Golden Sound, Nikolaine Martin, Jen-E and Kid Kenobi. DJ Katch, Ben Ely's Mungo Fungo Band, tunes courtesy of the Brisbane Underground Jazz Club: the list goes on.

2024's Brisbane Winter Sessions spans free sessions aplenty, both indoors and outdoors. Some not only support live music but raise money for a great cause, such as the Raising the Roof fundraiser for Brisbane Youth Service at Black Bear Lodge. Others have a high-school reunion theme, which The Brightside is playing host to on Ekka holiday eve. The return of Planet of the Breaks is on the lineup as well, taking place at La La Land. Then, wrapping up the event is fest-within-the-fest That Sound Over the Fence at The Triffid.

Top image: Zennieshia Butts.