Live Review: Groundwater Country Music Festival 2024

The first day of the Groundwater Country Music Festival was alive with country spirit potent enough to lure just about anyone onto the grounds – and the crowds came in droves, drawn in by the brilliantly executed vision of Head Organiser Mark Duckworth.

Having spent thousands of hours trawling through socials for new acts, he couldn’t have been more proud of the lineup for the first day and the rest of the festival. 

Duckworth also noted several new features on the 2024 program, including the line-dancing mob and the winners of the annual Groundwater KIX-Start competition, Freight Train Foxes. 

Speaking of the line dancing, Mark said it was the first time the event had been integrated into the festival in about ten years. 

“I think that the resurgence of Dasha and Beyoncé and the whole TikTok movement of line dancing has actually evolved into something totally different,” he said.

While there are plenty of reasons to dance, there have also been plenty of rainy days on the way to pulling together this free festival for another year. 

“Getting the right mix of artists is a challenge,” Duckworth continued, “because it’s important to have all the strands of the country genre tree, including folk, bluegrass, country rock, traditional country, honky-tonk, and bro-country.

“That way, people see what they came for as well as other things that will surprise and delight. We curate it so that people will stumble across things they didn’t expect to see, from big Nashville acts to emerging artists.

“Ella Hooper from Killing Heidi is doing a Linda Ronstadt tribute - we don’t often put on cover bands, but when someone goes deep like that, I think it will be really fun,” Duckworth said. 

“The festival gets a little bit bigger and more recognised every year, and country is really having a moment in the Australian music scene. Last year, total attendance was over 56,000 and injected $11 million into the economy over three days, and this year looks the same.” 

Up under the tent in the late morning, Felicity Urquhart and her band had boots and boardies moving with a lively performance. Between her classically clean vocals and a drum beat that reverberated through the chest, there were plenty of reasons to get on the dance floor. 

The band was dressed largely in denim, and as the midday heat set in, sweat was practically pouring off the stage. 

A multi-instrumentalist, Felicity was skilled in many areas, but perhaps none so much as the art of connecting with the crowd. She was warm and funny – with heartfelt, wholesome lines about songbirds and quips about dirty laundry and lube (you had to be there) – and it all shone out in her onstage relationship with her husband, Josh Cunningham of The Waifs fame. 

This same warmth was common to so many of the punters at GCMF, and it was little wonder, having been blessed with such glorious sunshine and beachside surroundings to look upon. 

Through the Broadbeach Mall echoed the sounds of the Briana Dinsdale duo playing Irresistible Force, one of many self-professed break-up songs. She followed it up with the dulcet tones of another beautifully raw track that asked the age-old break-up question, “How do I not be in love?” and a dynamically resonant tune about soldiers coming home.

Most memorable was her hit Real Time Love, noted as her first attempt at a love song – and a damn good one at that if the growing crowd had anything to say about it. 

Meanwhile, Pete Cullen and friends were rocking the tightly-packed Den Devine, “friends” being code for “brilliant, energetic violinist and backing vocalist” with the chops to add a whole lot of visual and aural fun to the set.

It would have been tempting to stay for the whole three-hour set, but with only 45 minutes of Freight Train Foxes on offer, there was little time to spare. The two-piece pulled off a stirring rendition of their 2022 single Fly To You that was reminiscent of Passenger and indie film soundtracks. Their story about a hillbilly preacher and endearing, self-deprecating humour punctuated a set full of delicate lyricism and emotions, which was then promptly burst by the declaration, “If you wanna take us home, or wear us, you can buy a T-shirt”.

GCMF loved them, not only for their sweet, smooth vocals but for their frivolous, fun stage personalities and the sense that it was all truly authentic. 

Next up in the mall was Brittany Elise, a highly energetic, double-denim-clad performer with frontwoman style. 

Tracks Something About This Town and Sunshine Hurricane spoke to the Queensland country lifestyle that so many festival-goers have lived and loved, with deliciously bare instrumentation, while others, like Lucky, applied the theme of hard work to a career in the music industry.

Her biggest crowd-pleaser was her brilliant if unexpected set-closing mash-up of everybody’s favourite country song, Man, I Feel Like A Woman, with Chicken Fried and The Gambler, and her strong, clear belt rang out through the mall long after the set was over. 

As Pete Cullen and his ever-energetic violinist continued on several hours into the set, the all-too-familiar melody of Wagon Wheel came streaming out of the bar. There’s no doubt the crowd would have danced along were there enough space – and for Matt Ward, playing a song about “dying before being taken off the land”, they did just that.

His cover of Paul Kelly’s Dumb Things was a set stand-out – a spectacle rivalled only by the fluorescent green outfit worn by his violinist, May, who also proved an impressively strong country vocalist with a great vibrato. With songs about everything from the feeling of knowing that you’ve found someone special to the perils of the Australian roads, Matt Ward proved himself a great songwriter and a worthy addition to the festival lineup once again. 

After a short time-out to check out the gathering of dancers taking on the Nutbush dance routine – a first for the festival – The Wet Whistles were ready to wow the crowd gathered around their rotunda stage.

They came prepared with fun, playful tunes about 4-wheel drives and Friday nights and a handful of covers, ranging from Jolene to You Should Probably Leave by Chris Stapleton. Their harmonies alone made the trek more than worthwhile, and their on-stage banter was second to none – at least, that is, until The Davidson Brothers took their turn. 

In between banter about their childhood sharing bunk beds and busking together in Tamworth, the four brothers played a set full of soul, beautifully (and momentarily) complemented by Felicity and Josh from the performance earlier in the day.

Even after the two additional voices left the stage, the harmonies remained full and thick, each singer throwing his whole chest into the performance. As if their vocal prowess wasn’t impressive enough, the mandolin solos were truly something to behold – highly complex instrumentals that seemed like they could have carried on for hours without ever running out of steam. 

As the sun began to sink, Jayne Denham was just rising up, delivering a gutsy vocal performance to match her unbridled confidence. Her song Lovin’ a Wild Thing kicked things off on a high, but it was their collective comfort on stage, particularly during songs like Hung Up On You featuring Jamie Lindsay, that cemented the resounding first impression that this band knew their stuff.

Denham’s covers were also something to write home about, including a charismatic take on the John Farnham number That’s Freedom that had everyone singing along and the epic leather-jacket-clad recreation of Kasey Tyndall’s Jesus And Joan Jett that was brimming with attitude. Denham was not only a bonafide rockstar on stage but also a human, gushing about fulfilling a dream she had held onto for ten years. 

Just when the crowd thought the women of GCMF couldn’t have been any more badass, along came Taylor Moss, singing great songs and asking even better questions: “Does anyone here like to go drinking and camping?”

You could say she knew her audience – and although the thumping drums and bass were geared towards getting people on their feet and keeping them there (Wild Ones and Ain’t No Cover Girl are worth a listen), she also knew how to bring the tempo down and let her high range shine.

Her 2024 hit Country Proud boasted plenty of sing-along-able bits that struck a chord, as well as a sweet key change, while The Women Who Raised Me spoke to all the women in the crowd and hit some incredible high notes in the process. Finally, she put her vocal range (and everyone else’s) to good use with a cover of John Farnham’s unforgettable hit You’re The Voice.

The right song can turn a crowd into a family – and perhaps no one knows this better than Adam Brand, the nostalgic songwriter and performer who always belonged amongst a close-knit band with his children around his ankles. Between his fiancé and his two daughters, aged five and two, Adam had his hands full on stage – in the most literal sense. 

The kids made for what had to go down as one of the cutest performances in the festival’s history, pulling off dramatic dance moves with unwavering confidence. His cover of Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics may have been the most well-known song he performed, but it was The Anzac, his original song about Australia’s soldiers, that struck a chord with so many in the crowd.

Finally, Adam passed the final test of the set with a seamless transition into Wild Women that seemed to bring the crowd to life, even as cold winds picked up and energy stores began to wane. 

Just as Adam was slowing down, Shannon Noll was heating up with some of his most popular hits, including Loud, Lonely, and Learn To Fly. Alliteration aside, Nollsy reminded everyone of three important things: he knows how to write a hit song, he can still hit (and hold) those high notes, and he is a family man, after all. 

“This one goes out to all the dads out there,” he declared as he launched into Now I Run, truly looking the “Dad part” in his jeans and plain black sports shirt. He indulged himself with a long, gritty final note, and the crowd let it wash over them with ease – because if there’s one thing Shannon is not, it’s pretentious. In fact, he made a point of acknowledging his roots in Australian Idol and thanking the festival crowd, saying, “You are the most important people in the Australian music industry because without you, none of us have a job.” 

Shannon is not one to shy away from an epic cover (including the Aussie classics Waltzing Matilda and What About Me, no less), and yet, it was his originals that really won the crowd over. Lonely and Lift were beautiful reminders of the true-blue career Shannon has had and the fact that he still has much to give. 

At the end of the night, the line at the Broadbeach Tavern was out the door for Tyla Rodrigues. Dressed in her trademark denim and cowgirl hat, it was clear that the country princess meant business, and her excited fans had followed suit in their cowboy boots.

She knew how to keep the crowd dancing, with classic country chords flowing out onto the street and an array of new favourites from her 2024 album, Upon Reflection, including Wish I Would, Straight Outlaw, and Way Out West.