'It Was Almost A No Blues Announcement' - Peter Noble Talks Bluesfest

Late last night the Byron Bay Bluesfest unleashed the first 16 acts that will be making their way to the 2013 installment of the festival; all international acts and the majority of them with a somewhat more contemporary appeal than the festival's first announcements have historically had.

Bands like Dropkick Murphys, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, Wilco and Iggy & The Stooges might not immediately be associated with the Byron Bay event (though Wilco did make an appearance in 2008), but Festival Director Peter Noble wants people to pay more attention to the contemporary music the festival has been booking for years.

“It was almost a no blues announcement,” he comments from his Byron Bay office. “I guess Steve Miller counts, and Bonnie [Raitt]. I wanted to show another side of the festival and I think that's important that people realise there are other aspects of the festival.

“A lot of people said last year's festival was [skewed] a bit older, but I was looking through it and wondering how people get there with that. It seemed one of the most rounded bills. From The Pogues to Dawes, My Morning Jacket, Slightly Stoopid, Blitzen Trapper… I just see what we're doing in that line of what we do. What I decided to do this year was put it in the earlier announcement and that probably makes a bit of a difference.”

The four big announcements this year are to be loosely themed, punters can expect an all Australian announcement, a stricter blues and roots announcement and an announcement of legendary artists.

“Very loosely themed,” Noble says. “This one was meant to be totally alternative, a bit punky, but somewhere or another some of the older artists snuck in. I couldn't keep Santana and Steve Miller out and when Bonnie [Raitt] was ready to go she actually edged someone else out.”

Having Santana play Bluesfest is something of a dream for Noble.

“That's an act I've dreamed about playing at Bluesfest. That I've gone, 'in this life I hope to get to present him' – Bob Dylan two years ago was another one. There is no greater Latin artist in the world; there is no greater guitar player, in my opinion, in the world – when I hear Carlos do one of those sustaining solos, there ain't nobody else that comes near it. Some people like Bonamassa, some people like Clapton, but, for me, when I heard him do that album Caravanserai [Santana's groundbreaking 1972 LP] all those years back, I just went 'whoa!' I'd never heard a man play a guitar like that and when he plays, you instantly know that it's him.

“We do a lot of polling; we're always asking people who they want to see. Carlos is always in the Top 15, he's usually up there with Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Dylan and Carlos Santana are pretty interchangeable – one year one will be higher than the other – they're the acts people want to see. And the Stones, Clapton and Neil Young.”

Ben Harper and Bluesfest have had a very close relationship since his first visit way back in 1996 and Noble urges people that they haven't seen a Ben Harper show until they've seen him at Bluesfest.

“You might have seen Ben Harper somewhere, but seeing him at Bluesfest is something else. He is the one artist that, for whatever reason, just clicked with us and our audience. I guess he's the artist that is most identified with Bluesfest out of all of them. We went through quite a few years where he wouldn't come for whatever reason, he just couldn't, but now we've been able to get him twice in a few years.

“I think he pretty much personifies what we're about, there's some blues and some roots in it, but it's not all in the past. There are artists who are striding forward into the future. I'll never forget that day in 1996 when he first played at Bluesfest and everybody just went 'something happened here' and I thought, 'yeah, and I need to know what it was'. Something changed from the time he walked on stage at Bluesfest that year. He just made a whole lot of people realise that blues music is not necessarily constrained; you can hear the blues in Ben Harper but it's not 12-bar. Yet you can hear a lot of other influences; you can hear Marley and you can hear things that make you realise that this guy is just taking it somewhere new.”

Harper will play Bluesfest with a band backing him up, but Noble has no idea what the band will actually be. The last time Harper played Bluesfest he surprised everyone by bringing out his band The Innocent Criminals, who hadn't played together

“Absolutely,” he confirms. “Don't know what they're called. Last time they must have been called the Relentless Criminals, it was a bit of both. Ben tends to do all sorts of surprise things at Bluesfest. I only found out the Innocent Criminals were playing about 24 hours ahead, he keeps those things very close to his chest.”

There were a few acts that Noble wanted for the first announcement that he just couldn't quite get across the line, but it's a common issue, he says.

“They'll either be on the second or third of fourth one. Last year, about two hours before the bloody announcement, John Fogerty pulled out. But he ended up being on the third or fourth one. There are always artists that for whatever reason can't quite get it over the line, maybe they need a couple of dates in northern Asia or something like that. There's always reasons.”

As far as the method of announcing, Noble has decided against following the lead of some of his competitors, deciding to keep the number of bands announced to a reasonable number so each artist can get the

“I don't think doing 25 band announcements or 40 band announcements makes any sense,” he says. “If you've got a strong announcement then do it, hold back some and do another strong announcement.”

Stay tuned to our Bluesfest page over the coming months to get the latest news, interviews and rich content from the acts playing the 2013 event.