By TANIA PHILLIPS
IT’S not every day that a muso from the Tweed gets to share the spotlight with musical luminaries including Neil Finn, Johnny Marr and The Cat Empire but that is just what Uki’s Bill Jacobi is about to do.
The affable and popular local musician has won the ‘Hitting the Road’ songwriting competition to perform at Mullum Music Festival and The Falls Music and Arts Festival Byron this year as well as scoring a profile feature in Rhythms Magazine, Australia’s leading roots music magazine.
Bill Jacobi, from Uki, said his winning song ‘Ride’ is about “hitting the road on a motorbike, getting out of town and leaving your troubles behind. The lyric is built around the words of a good friend’s four-year-old daughter ‘Naught naught daddy gone kuka bi’ which translates roughly to ‘Naughty daddy’s gone on the motorbike’.”
The songwriting competition has been a popular feature of the annual Mullum Music Festival for the past two years. This year, The Falls Music and Arts Festival Byron came on board, giving the winner the opportunity to perform at two great summer festivals. The songwriting competition by judged by Glenn Wright (Mullum Music Festival director), Marty Jones (Rhythms Magazine editor) and Brandon Saul (The Falls Music and Arts Festival Byron director).
Meanwhile, as an early Christmas present for locals, The Falls Music and Arts Festival Byron are releasing a final allocation of locals tickets to their sold-out event. Locals will be able to head to the summer festival held over the New Year period at the North Byron Parklands site, while additional tickets went on sale from 9am Monday 18 November through www.byronbay.fallsfestival.com.
Locals (Byron Shire and south Tweed Shire residents) can purchase three-day festival tickets. The Falls Music and Arts Festival’s stellar line-up includes Vampire Weekend, Neil Finn, Violent Femmes, Chet Faker, The Wombats, MGMT and The Preatures, among many more international, national and local acts.
Local residents can purchase up to four tickets per person, only the purchaser needs to be a local resident. The special release of locals tickets will go on sale from 9am Monday 18 November online only throughwww.byronbay.fallsfestival.com The festival is an 18-plus event.
The Falls Music and Arts Festival Byron is operating a car pass system for the festival. Any ticket holders entering the festival by vehicle will require a pre-purchased car pass, and in a bid to encourage carpooling, the festival will provide refunds onsite to those who arrive with three or four ticket holders in their vehicle. Timetabled bus services and shuttle buses will also be operating to the festival from numerous locations up and down the coast. Tickets will be available at the bus stop collection points, ranging between $5 to $10 per trip. To purchase car passes and for more information visit the Byron section of www.fallsfestival.com
What: The Falls
When: 31 December – 3 January in Byron, NSW, 18-plus event – additional locals tickets on sale, general release sold out
