Overview
FBi Radio's boots are getting bigger, better and shinier by the day — for the first time ever, Sydney's independent radio legends launched an Australia-wide competition. Extending their Northern Lights competition nationwide (in which FBi flies two above-and-beyond newbies to Iceland Airwaves Festival in Reykjavik), the team looked for talent across the country this time. After trawling through this year's entries, FBi have announced their ten finalists.
The 2014 Northern Lights competition finalists are:
Shunya (VIC)
Jasia (NSW)
Hubert Clarke Jr (NSW)
LUCIANBLOMKAMP (VIC)
Kucka (WA)
GL (VIC)
Airling (QLD)
WZRDKID (VIC)
The Walking Who (NSW)
White Hex (VIC)
A hotly-anticipated date on the music festival calendar, Iceland Airwaves has seen everyone from Bjork to Omar Souleyman, Savages to Harpa Silfurberg playing to packed halls of Icelandic and international fans. FBi competition's now in its third year, offer two winning spots to join the Airwaves lineup — one solo producer/artist, one band. With the help of philanthropist Mitchel Martin-Weber and the federal government, this marks one of FBi's biggest-scale competitions to date, kicking another goal after the recent FBi Click launch.
Winners of the first Northern Lights, Oliver Tank and Rainbow Chan, have seen super success following their Icelandic escapade (with Tank supporting Lorde on her recent national tour and Chan joining the lineup for Vivid LIVE's recent Avalanches tribute Since I Left You, no biggie). "It really changed my life that whole trip. It was so incredible," says Tank. "I got to play music overseas before I’d even done that many gigs in Australia. And there were people over there that were interested in my music and that just blew my mind. It was like a dream come true. It was such an experience."
As always, the finalists feature on a special edition compilation put together by FBi Radio, yours to download free here.
Northern Lights winners will be announced at the end of August, and will head over to perform at Iceland Airwaves in early November.