Xavier Rudd, The Waifs Lead Gorgeous Festival Line-Up

South Australia’s aptly named Gorgeous Festival has unveiled the line-up that will fill out its 2014 event in McLaren Vale, led by the venerated triumvirate of Xavier Rudd, The Waifs and The Beautiful Girls.

Rudd, a twice-ARIA-nominated artist who has become nothing short of an indelible fixture of the national roots music (and activism) scene over the past twelve or so years since the release of debut effort To Let. His candid lyricism and warm personality have served to make him one of the country’s most respected troubadours, so even if you’ve caught him live before, there’s no reason to not be excited at the prospect of doing so once again.

Veteran act The Waifs are a similarly enticing act, having garnered a loyal following over their twenty years together as a band, which started in a van back in 1992 with siblings Donna and Vikki, and mate Josh, and has since seen the trio elevate to heights of having sold half a million albums just in Australia as well as having bestowed upon them several ARIA Awards. You’ve had a fifth of a century to get on board, so there’s little point in dallying further.

They’re not girls, and beauty is kind of a subjective thing, but The Beautiful Girls are nonetheless one of the nation’s most beloved roots concerns, centred on singer-songwriter-instrumentalist-producer Mat McHugh. The band have managed to chalk up something in the vicinity of 250,000 album sales over the past decade of touring at home and internationally, and will have just dropped new album Dancehall Days (due in October) by the time Gorgeous rolls around, so you’ll have time to get well acquainted with some of the fresh cuts likely to grace your ears come November.

Rounding out the roots-filled revelry will be ubiquitous Queenslanders Busby Marou, the meteoric Little May, the ever-reliable The Cairos, fellow locals Timberwolf, The Timbers, Echo & Empress and Rin McArdle, and a trio of Canadians for a bit of worldly flair – Elliott Brood, Kim Wempe and Tim Chaisson.

This year’s Gorgeous Festival will be held at Serafino Winery from November 28-29, and will host the event’s inaugural long-table dinner on the Friday night.

“Each year since our inception we’ve managed to secure fantastic musicians and we’re very excited to announce that, again this year, we have some of Australia’s leading soulful singers and songwriters heading to Gorgeous,” festival director Alistair Cranney said in a statement.

“While we’ve always incorporated premium regional food and wine into our offering, we’re going one step further this year by introducing ‘Gorgeous Table’ on the Friday evening, details of which will be announced soon.

“As with other years, we’ll also be featuring live visual artists, exhibitions, cooking demonstrations and the wine tasting tent, plus a crèche, where parents can drop off their children, who will then be kept entertained with all sorts of kids’ activities.”

Tickets will start going on sale “in coming weeks”, though mailing-list members will get first look-in from next Monday, August 25.

For more information, see our dedicated Gorgeous Festival page.