Froth & Fury Fest Is Set To Be An Epic Event
‘That sold out the fastest I ever sold an event. In two and half days. I had the bands selling tickets so they could make extra cash and they all sold out too.’ Jason North, the mastermind behind South Australia’s fastest growing music festival Froth & Fury Fest, tells me of year one. Year two was a step up again and year three promises to be spectacular ‘Last year we shut down two streets and this year is similar, except there is now a car park across from Pirate Life we will use for food and merch, push back the bars into the streets to give more room to watch the bands. This year we’ve got bigger bands, bigger capacity and remodelled it. 3500 is the capacity we are going for. The more Adelaide gets behind it, the more we can make it bigger and bigger every year’.
Froth & Fury Festival is mixture of all genres of rock and metal music played out to the backdrop of colonial South Australian brick that is Port Adelaide situated at the Pirate Life Brewery establishment. The festival enters its third year of existence in November.
Led by both Australian and international heavyweights in Butterfly Effect and Suicidal Tendencies, the support cast spreads across the genres including punk, prog, metalcore, stone rock and all in between. Sunk Loto, Windwaker, Red Hook and Ocean Grove to name a few arrive from interstate while there is a healthy contingent of SA bands in Hidden intent, Freedom Of Fear and Dyssidia.
‘It’s not just a metal festival. There are punk bands, hardcore, stoner rock. Metal is only so popular in Adelaide unless you get Metallica. You’ve got to branch it out to the more alternative stuff like Butterfly Effect and Sunk Loto, then the metalcore crowd which is very popular here. You’ve got to please those fans too. That’s why this is different from my other festivals.’
Jason is experienced in the festival setting as having been behind the long running and successful Heavy SA and New Dead festivals, as well as his own successful career touring the world with his band Truth Corroded. This experience both as a musician and an organiser is beyond valuable so when approached by Umbrella Festival in conjunction with Pirate Life in 2021 it switched on the creative light bulb once again.
‘It was the year of the Covid stuff, 2021, Umbrella was like ‘Jase, you’re not doing anything else, Covid has happened, your bands not touring, you’re not doing New Dead or Heavy SA, would you do something for Umbrella?’ Anita from Pirate Life wants to do a metal fest a Pirate Life’. Now I’m interested, this sounds like something different. So we had a chat with Anita and the Pirate Life crew and they were keen! Anita was like ‘I’ll build it, you fill it!’
‘Going into the meeting we didn’t know what to expect with one, Covid, and two the restrictions were like 7-800. I knew I couldn’t get any interstate bands due to lockdown, so it was getting Adelaide bands that I perceived as the more popular metal bands. Let’s keep it cheap so we can get people to come out to Port Adelaide to a new venue to see what it’s like.’
Twelve months later, despite some wet weather for an hour, the day was a glorious success prompting this year’s co mega headline bill and larger capacity of 3,500 for the all-day event filled with various food outlets, merchandise, Metal and South Australia’s finest beverages. The day promises to be a great time for one and all.
‘With New Dead, it was always known as fun time. The crowd was always a sick, the bands were great and they always had a party. So people always wanted to come back. With the international bands, my goal was to make sure that was the best show on their tour. That relationship and reputation mixed with word of mouth, so when bands hear ‘Jason is throwing a music festival at a brewery, that will be fun!’ they come. We make sure everyone has a good time.’
Interview By Iain McCallum
Froth & Fury Fest is on Saturday 18 November at Pirate Life Brewing, Tickets HERE…
