This past weekend saw the latest iteration of the great Mountain Goat Valley Crawl (MGVC), a free annual music festival in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Much like BIGSOUND, each year the MGVC makes the most of the abundance of great live venues in our glorious city by putting on a wide range of Australian acts on spread out through the valley. The venues to be involved this year ranged from the intimate Barbara, Greaser and Blutes, to the narrow but impressive Black Bear Lodge and The Foundry, to the accommodating Brightside, Crowbar, Woolly Mammoth and The Elephant. The 2020 Valley Crawl hosted a wide variety of Australian acts from Queensland legend Tia Gostelow to Perth rapper Arno Faraji and Melbourne rockers The Lazy Susans.
A surprise standout venue was actually the smallest venue of the bunch, the quaint, homely Barbara, which housed electric sets from infectious pop-rocker Harmon and the awe/groove-inspiring psych-lords Great Sage. Both sets were packed out too almost an uncomfortable level, what kept everything in check were some 20-30 gracious audience members enjoying and boogieing to the sets from outside, while the live acts kept moods high with their incredible sets.
Brisbane’s self-proclaimed “alternative ethereal pop folk” queen Clea took to the stage at The Brightside, providing festival-goers with a collection of tracks from her glorious debut album Vermillion as well as a couple new tracks that we will hopefully hear again before too long. One of the many things that made Clea’s performance so captivating is her ability to effortlessly combine vastly different genres into tracks that are memorable and oh-so-catchy.
This year’s Mountain Goat Valley Crawl once again lived up to the high standards they set themselves at their first iteration back in 2017. Attending this music festival is a no brainer for any music fan!
This review is courtesy of Phoenix Radio’s Emerge program, hosted by Calen Le Couteur and Russell Thompson. Follow Emerge and tune in on Monday nights 7-9PM HERE.
