Top Five Picks For Falls Festival 2013

New Year’s Eve is probably the largest party celebrated universally as it’s a time to simultaneously reflect on the year behind us as well as look forward to the one ahead.

So with 2013’s Falls Music and Arts Festival kicking off in just a matter of days, we couldn’t be more enthused to pack our bags and pitch our tents as we celebrate the occasion with live music, great company and beautiful territory.

Playing a huge part in Australia’s Summer festival circuit, the country has been treated to the reputable, eco-friendly event for many years now at both Lorne and Marion Bay. Now expanding to Byron Bay, we’re more than ready to welcome the inaugural festival at the gorgeously warm New South Wales town.

Plug into the latest music with our FREE weekly newsletter

With timetables and maps now available to us all, there’s some serious festival planning we need to attend to. To help make tough decisions, we’ve narrowed down the lineup to our top five acts to catch at Falls Festival this year.

VIOLENT FEMMES

The Grandfathers of folk-punk will be making their way to Falls this year. Not just your regular set though, as they’ll be performing their self-titled debut album from start to finish! Released in 1983, we’ll be celebrating its 30^th anniversary as we dance around to tracks such as ‘Blister In The Sun’, ‘Kiss Off’, ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ and ‘Ugly’. To say we are ridiculously pumped would be an understatement.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND

We’ve been on the Vampire Weekend bandwagon since the day their self-titled release arrived. Instantly falling in love with their charismatically quirky rays of pop sunshine, we’ve truly missed having them here since their last visit for Big Day Out this year. Ecstatic to catch Modern Vampires Of The City live, we know we’re in for a good time during their performance this Falls!

BONOBO

Born and bred by Simon Green, his production project that is Bonobo is a musical journey that we’ve felt privileged following. Active since the year 2000, he’s gone on to release five studio records, the latest being The North Borders – a gorgeous capsule of time, energy and technique that we’re just hanging to see live at the festival this year.

SOLANGE

Yeah some may know her as the sister of Beyonce, but that means quite little to us in terms of Solange’s music career. Along with being genetically blessed, her voice is impeccable and used beautifully in her work released thus far. Playing a run of Australian dates alongside her Falls Festival appearances, any Solange fan would be daft to miss the opportunity of seeing her perform live.

JAMES VINCENT MCMORROW

North Dublin’s James Vincent McMorrow will be owning the stage at Falls this year. We instantly fell in love with his debut album Early In The Morning as it demonstrated his lush vocals, genuine songwriting and powerful instrumentation. Full of emotion, our standout tracks are ‘If I Had A Boat’, ‘From The Woods’ and ‘Hear The Noise That Moves So Soft And Low’; so knowing that we’ll be catching these as well as material from his forthcoming record Post Tropical is more than exciting.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

We know it’s a “Top Fives” article, but would it really be one from Purple Sneakers if it didn’t include some sneaky extras? The Falls lineup obviously contains more than just five great acts to go and check out (including a bunch of Australian legends) so we thought we’d include just a few tracks from some more artists we’re dying to see!

GRIZZLY BEAR 'WHILE YOU WAIT FOR THE OTHERS'