Live Review: The Best West Australian Acts At BIGSOUND 2024

With Perth (Boorloo) tucked on the opposite side of the country, it’s always special when artists make the trip over east to share their music. BIGSOUND 2024 hosted incredible acts out of WA, from country to rock, folk to pop, punk to indie, this was a charcuterie board of talent, and BIGSOUND attendees were hungry!

Claudia Tripp

With her wide-brim cowboy hat and signature magenta hair, Claudia Tripp is difficult to miss, and her shows are certainly not to be missed either. Fitting right in on Honky Tonks’ saloon-style stage, Tripp wove an intimate and spirited performance, intertwining her latest release (Rodeo) with older favourites (Too Far Gone, I Only Miss You When I’m Drunk).

The sociable nature of Tripp’s show was compelling, with a few dedicated fans leaning into choreographed line dances in the front row and encouraging the rest of the assembled crowd to hop off their stools and join in.

Covers of popular country-pop and country-rock tunes also featured, with Kenny Loggins’ Footloose and Tom Cochrane’s Life Is A Highway making a welcome appearance with Tripp’s powerful vocals. A sing-along standout was the 2023 release I’m Never Drinking Again, a sentiment a few BIGSOUND delegates might share after the last three days of non-stop conferences and late-night showcases.

Little Guilt

A last-minute change of bassist saw a modified version of Mandurah’s (Mandjoogoordap) indie-pop darlings Little Guilt taking to the JBL Live Stage in Brunswick Street Mall on Wednesday night.

With bassist Jarrod Rumble stepping away from the group at the end of July, David Williams slotted into his place with only a handful of weeks to learn the entire set. No matter, picking up Little Guilt’s signature synthy twang was clearly light work for Williams, who also hails from Perth-based groups Stem Steller and Equals Equals. With the stage sandwiched between a hotdog stall and an Irish pub, the quintet took the ever-growing crowd through a voyage of their three year discography, including their latest single SLUSH, released at the end of August.

EP Finding Space from this May was also featured heavily, with the combination of vocals from Ella Melton and Lachlan Thomson always a dreamily haunting delight. Little Guilt they may be, but we felt no guilt indulging in this sweet set.

Sly Withers

Sly Withers charged into their last showcase of the week for a night permanently etched in memory, with lead vocalist and guitarist Jono Mata sporting a freshly inked shark along his forearm. And not dissimilar from sharks, a packed crowd of voracious fans descended on the Prince Consort, lively for 11 PM on a Wednesday.

Opening with the punchy Lately before slowing down into the reflective Passing Through, and then back to high energy with Overgrown and Radio. There was trouble with the drum stand mid-set, with manager Simon “Skinny” O’Leary diving on stage to hold the drum in place, crouched underneath a cymbal. Between the mayhem, the show went on, chock full of anthems you can scream to, dance to, and headbang to. Checkout off the 2019 EP Gravis closed out the show, but the crowd demanded more – a rare occurrence at BIGSOUND – with calls for one more song echoing for over five minutes after Sly exited the stage.  

Fool Nelson

It seems the Prince Consort was the place to be to hear scorching guitar riffs this BIGSOUND, with Fool Nelson taking to the stage on Thursday night.

Kicking off at 7.15 PM, they drew a large and dedicated crowd into the Prince, especially for such an early hour of the evening. The three-piece, made up of two brothers and their best mate, tore through the tracklist of their sophomore EP Falling Apart, also taking time to dip into old favourites like their first single, Solace. Apart from absolutely blistering guitar and drum solos from Darcy Steven and Ned Broadbent, respectively, lead vocalist Tom Broadbent’s vocals always stand out, offering such a distinct and clear voice – it’s always a privilege to listen to him live. 

Noah Dillon

Noah Dillon graced The Outpost with a shockingly intimate show for the huge mass of people crammed into the space. Starting slow with the 2021 offering, That’s Just How I Feel, Dillon moved into some cuts from his fresh EP Soft, such as the soaring It Takes Courage To Be Soft. A pared-back solo rendition of the yet-to-be-released 2033 was also played, a song surprisingly easy to both laugh and cry to.

But Dillon doesn’t want us crying, with the tempo rapidly increasing into screaming along to I C.A.N.T. The screaming turned into shrieking, a feature on the extended cut of Let It Out. Dillon encouraged the audience to get involved in a community purging of negative emotions and pent up energy, and you would be forgiven for thinking The Outpost was shaking from the combined commotion of the collected crowd. Now that’s music.

Dear Sunday

After a whirlwind August on an Australia-wide tour, a few technical difficulties were not going to put the brakes on Dear Sunday at their last showcase of BIGSOUND. With a few screeching sound issues, and power being lost mid-set – lead vocalist Ben Swanson summarised their approach the best – “we’re just going to have to raw-dog it, I can’t hear my guitar”.

While there might have been technical power outages on stage, there was no shortage of power during the delivery of their set. A cardboard cue sign reading “CHEER” was quickly discarded as the crowd did not need any instruction to scream as loudly as possible in the highly vaulted Brightside. Their songs often lent themselves to audience involvement, such as Capital F, Never Again and Deja Vu (Familiar Face). Audience involvement even expanded to an entire verse, with journo Tait McGregor stepping in to sing the final bridge of a cover of Wheatus’ Teenage Dirtbag. 

Another BIGSOUND polished off, no crumbs left. While the fun of BIGSOUND lies in being able to watch these acts in person, it is even more exciting to see where this next year takes them and how they expand from this year’s showcases and conferences. Safe travels back west!