Your Guide To In The Pines 2024

For over three decades, local community radio legends RTRFM's In The Pines festival has been the premier all-WA live music celebration. In an age where local acts often cop the earlier slots at festivals headlined by internationals, In The Pines has featured nothing but West Aussie talent from kick off till stumps and 2024 is no exception, as over 20 bands and 8 DJs will do their thing at UWA’s Somerville Auditorium and Riley Oval for nearly 10 hours of non-stop tunes on Sunday, April 21.

With nearly 30 acts on the bill ranging from longtime faves to emerging new faves, covering everything from extreme crust punk and doom metal to retro funk and soul revivalists and even a contemporary classical saxophone quartet, the lineup is an aural smorgasbord of musical diversity.

Someone very familiar with the lineup is RTRFM Breakfast’s Pam Boland (who we got to know here), who five mornings a week jumps into the studio for three hours of talk and tunes, with a heavy emphasis on the local side of things.

To help suss out your itinerary for the day, Pam was kind enough to give us the lowdown on her must see acts.

Didion’s Bible:

Look, I’m a Didion’s super fan, best to get that out in the open.

If you haven’t caught them before… Their performances are FULL of loopy lightness and levity, angular post punk and new wave sounds accessorised by big group choruses and cheeky spoken word interludes.

Energetic and exciting, the alt-rock sextet WILL facilitate an inescapable groove for the movers or you can sit back and bask in the silly/serious, but I reckon you’ll be dancing in your seat.

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The Krui3ers:

A proper afternoon treat, the saltwater country rockers are travelling all the way down from Mowanjum in the Kimberley for the occasion!

Sharing tenderly about their community, and the country they had to leave, their life growing up in Mowanjum (which means settled at last), their debut album Rebel Child is a bright and intimate portrait and one of RTRFM’s fave album’s of the last few years.

Performing is where they feel most comfortable, so getting to see them properly in their element is gonna be nuts.

From Rebel Child’s liner notes: “All of our experiences are from live music. We knew how to play before we went to school, but school gave us extra help, like the name of the chords!”

Ullah:

I THINK this band are responsible for the catchiest chorus of 2023. There, I said it. My speakers may have tired of it but I never will, I am beside myself with excitement to elatedly sing along with the bonnet-clad angels of Ullah and marvel at the heavenly harmonies!!

BYO bonnet and get practising with What Nightmares Are Made Of on repeat.

Corella Saxophone Quartet:

Talk about heavenly!!! Imagine… you’re lying on a giant picnic rug with your best mates, under Somerville Auditorium’s huge pine trees, afternoon sunlight filters through creating a silly kind of warm glow… THEN the sound of FOUR silky, spritely saxophones SERENADES you?

I’m gearing up to feel like an actual fairy, straight out of Midsummer Night’s Dream, flitting around the branches above.

Paint:

Walyalup noise-pop darlings are taking the stage in the middle of your Sunday afternoon, bringing a bit of shoegazey slacker rock to Pines.

Fuzzy, punk flavoured bedroom pop made by four besties.

TO BRING: Four besties.

SUPEREGO:

Always toying with traditional hip-hop and pop music structures to deliver a luxuriously jittery and dynamic performance, if you’re not already on your feet you will be when these experimental icons take the stage as night falls at Pines.

Blurring the lines between between rap, electronic, soul and punk on their latest record Who Are You Hiding From? They continue to bloody dazzle me.

SUPEREGO, to put it plainly, will GO OFF.

Livvy Ratbag B2B Ornette Coolman:

Over on the Riley Oval stage two of my favourite local DJ’s welcome the evening going B2B!

Livvy is the proud co-parent of my favourite local dance parties Smoked Trout,  and Stuart (Ornette Coolman) was behind the decks, steering the ship (?) that was some of this summer’s best dancefloors… HOW LUCKY ARE WE.

Promises: smooth house, cathartic movement, swirly whirly prog, sweaty joy.

RTRFM's In The Pines 2024 - Sunday, April 21

SOMERVILLE

11:00 Doors Open
11:45 Welcome to Country – Aunty Trish Wall
12:00 Ruby Pettit
12:30 TAB Family
13:00 Ullah
13:30 Corella Saxophone Quartet
14:00 The Krui3ers
14:30 De Cuba Son
15:00 Boox Kid
15:30 Paint
16:00 Suneater
16:30 Gaoled
17:00 Odlaw
17:30 Hector Morlet
18:00 Heathcote Blue
18:30 Echo Omen
19:00 Didion’s Bible
19:30 Rat Columns
20:00 Butter
20:30 Randa and The Soul Kingdom
21:00 SUPEREGO
21:30 Dennis Cometti

RILEY OVAL

14:00 Alana Joy
15:30 YESNA
17:00 Cooper Cooper x Nicole Filev
18:30 Livvy Ratbag x Ornette Coolman
20:00 Ernest and Young

More information and tickets here