Concrete Playground

music An Evening With Marianne Faithfull

Wednesday, 3rd February - 8PM
@ Sydney Opera House

It's always a gamble when a legend returns to the stage¦ Have they still got 'it'? Can they walk across the stage ok on their new knees? What if they just want to bore us with some new obscure "experimental" album? I don't think you have anything to worry about...

play The Big Fashion Sale

Saturday, 12th September - 3AM
@ BJB studios

For many of us, ‘fashion sale’ evokes uninviting images of messy bins and racks overflowing with last season’s rejects. Fortunately for us bargain-hunting fashion fanatics, The Big Fashion Sale is back this week. Break open your piggy banks and head to BJB Studios, where you’ll find precious pieces from top...

music Jamie T and The Pacemakers

Thursday, 17th September - 1PM
@ The Metro

Catching the Northern Line, getting drunk on 99p White Lightening cider, looking for a girlfriend only to discover “all the girls I loved at school are already pushing prams”.If anyone can paint a fine picture of growing up in London, it’s sharp-tongued 23 year-old Jamie T. Despite being criticized for...

music Rahzel

Thursday, 12th November - 3PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

When I attempt to beatbox, I sound like a dog growling and spitting at the same time. It’s one thing to make beats with a drum, but how on earth can you do it with your mouth?Rahzel is the first rapper to make it big in “the fifth element” of...

music AC/DC Black Ice Tour

Friday, 19th February - Monday, 22nd February
@ ANZ Stadium

The most electrifying force in rock music history was inspired by a vacuum cleaner. Brothers Malcolm and Angus Young named the band after spotting AC/DC initials on their household Hoover in 1973. Nearly four decades and 200 million record sales later the power is still surging, despite losing iconic front...

play Duke's Mutant Dance-Off

Friday, 30th October - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble, can you do the mutant shuffle? Duke Magazine are giving their annual dance-off a macabre makeover this Friday with the most swingin’ Halloween party in town – Duke's Mutant Dance-Off. Slip into your deadliest dancing shoes and do the smashed potato, the jittery jitterbug, the...

music Kitty, Daisy and Lewis

Thursday, 10th December - 8PM
@ Manning Bar, University of Sydney

When I first heard Kitty, Daisy and Lewis’s Goin’ Up The Country I actually presumed it was the original version, and that Canned Heat had covered it in 1969. I was wrong. The track was in fact recorded at the teenage siblings’ home studio in 2008, using 8-track tape machines...

music Field Day 2010

Friday, 1st January - 12PM
@ The Domain

Ever since it’s birth in 2001 my friends and I have loyally attended Fuzzy Field Day as if it were Christmas lunch at Aunty Tricia’s. No matter what sins are committed the night before, we all meet at a mate’s house, down a few hairs-of-the-dog and head to the Sydney...

travel music Groovin' the Moo 2010

Saturday, 8th May - 12PM
@ Maitland Showground

Despite the funny name (sounds like a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavour to me) Groovin’ the Moo is a diamond set in what could otherwise be quite a dry month for us Sydneysiders. After all, what ever happens in May? Summer is but a distant echo in our ears...

music Club NME

Saturday, 27th February - 9PM
@ Manning Bar, University of Sydney

If you’ve spent any time in London over the past six years, you might have spent at least one drunken night at Club NME in Camden. I remember when I was first seduced by the London indie scene in 2004 . . . every night was spent trawling pubs and...

music Big Pink

Sunday, 7th March - 8PM
@ Metro Theatre

Dizzy after a weekend celebrating winning Best Track of 2010 at the NME Awards in London last Thursday (not to mention performing live alongside Lily Allen), the band that everyone in Britain is banging on about, Big Pink, have touched down in Australia and are playing the Metro Theatre on...

travel music Secret Garden

Saturday, 13th March - Sunday, 14th March
@ Secret Location

There are several wonderful things about this festival. The first is that it’s entirely for charity. All proceeds go to the Sarah Hilt Foundation, which funds victims of meningococcal disease. The second is that you pay a flat rate of $105 and you get unlimited alcohol for the entire 24...

music Tegan and Sara

Friday, 7th May - 7PM
@ Big Top, Luna Park

Twins Tegan and Sara were born several hours apart in 1980 in Alberta, Canada. Fifteen years later they began playing guitar and writing songs as 'Sara and Tegan'. They later switched to 'Tegan and Sara' because it was easier to pronounce. (Imagine if the Olson twins had decided on 'Ashley...

music Mumford and Sons

Tuesday, 3rd August - 8PM - Wednesday, 4th August - 8PM
@ Enmore Theatre

Earlier this year, a little-known band named Mumford and Sons joined Nirvana, Offspring, Joy Division and Kings of Leon in a hall of fame that declared their debut single 'Little Lion Man' one of the hottest tunes of all time, according to Triple J listeners. It seems that while the...

travel music Splendour in the Grass 2010

Friday, 30th July - Sunday, 1st August
@ Woodfordia

Surely this year's stellar lineup is a festival organiser's wish-list published by accident? Thankfully, Australia's mother-of-all-festivals is stretching the fun from two days to three, so there is room enough for the juggernaut of outstanding local and international acts.

music Laura Marling

Sunday, 1st August - 7PM - Monday, 2nd August - 7PM
@ Metro Theatre

A musician far beyond her years, her husky voice never falters as she speaks directly to her audience through song, slicing the intensity every now and then with a dose of witty banter.

music Passion Pit

Monday, 2nd August - 8PM
@ The Forum

Passion Pit are funky. I know it’s the daggiest word in the dictionary, but has anyone every invented a decent alternative? Passion Pit are funky like John Travolta, funky like the Sugarhill Gang, funky like Jamiroquai. Shall I say it one more time? Funky. These five bearded boys from Boston...

music performing Florence and the Machine

Thursday, 5th August - 7PM - Sunday, 8th August - 7PM
@ Enmore Theatre

She’s launched her own iPhone app, recorded a track for the latest installment of the Twilight saga, and is the “cue empowering moment” audio hot pick for reality TV and news producers, but if you look past the promotional hoopla of Florence and the Machine, you’ll find the raw talent...

music Surfer Blood

Tuesday, 3rd August - 8PM
@ Manning Bar, University of Sydney

Despite the aggressive oceanic cover art on their debut album, [i] Astro Coast[/i], this Florida band mostly steer clear of surfer-rock. The album is a catchy mix of indie-rock-pop with impressive guitar riffs, traces of punk and bursts of Caribbean influences.

music So Frenchy So Chic with Nouvelle Vague & Berry

Wednesday, 16th June - 8PM
@ Factory Theatre

Would an album of French covers in the *sexy* Australian accent have the same effect on the French as these covers of Depeche Mode's 'Just Can't Get Enough' and the Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks' have on us?

film When Coreys walked the Earth: the '80s on film

Sunday, 13th June - 7PM
@ Powerhouse Museum

Remember the good ol’ days, when American teen flicks depicted gangly teens with real problems and real teeth? When high school misfits preferred to swap witty anecdotes at detention to sing-alongs at the glee club? When a vampire was only a vampire once he donned wayfarers and a leather jacket?...

music Parklife 2010

Sunday, 3rd October - 12PM
@ Kippax Lake

At the ripe old age of 10, this outdoor Sydney music festival is starting to sprout a few grey hairs. So, to prove that old age can only make this day of reveling in the greenery a little more sophisticated and a little more streetsmart, Fuzzy presents their most diverse lineup yet.

music A Tribe Called Quest

Wednesday, 11th August - 7PM
@ Hordern Pavilion

TEST

music Ernest Ellis

Thursday, 1st July - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Their laidback, floating pop-rock clears the mind. And with tracks recorded at the peak of a mountaintop, from the depths of a valley and in a bathtub, this band's unique approach to making music will transfer beautifully onto the stage.

music Blondie + Pretenders

Thursday, 9th December - 7PM
@ Enmore Theatre

If you missed out on nabbing tickets for the Blondie and Pretenders tour (the first two Sydney shows sold out in a matter of days) we’ve got good news: an extra Sydney show has been added to the bill.I’m sure there’s no need to delve into how epic this collaboration...

music FBi's Sydney Sounds Like - The Final Fling

Saturday, 17th July - 6PM
@ Metro Theatre

It's fun to be an FBi supporter. You get to cuddle in puddles, choose your own adventure, listen to stolen records, watch bands, dance to DJs - all thanks to a series of Sydney Sounds Like fun(d)raisers in the name of 'save FBi'.Cramming both rooms of the Metro Theatre, this stellar Aussie lineup includes a DJ set from the one-and-only Presets, rhythm and blues racket band Philadelphia Grand Jury, dreamy folk skater-boy Jonathan Boulet, Van She band member Matt Van Schie ('Schie' from which 'She' was derived) along with Parades, Deep Sea Arcade, Seekae and Purple Sneakers DJs. So pry open your piggy banks and sort out a ticket - at only $20 for supporters, $25 for non-supporters and $30 on the door, it's probably the cheapest Presets gig ever - and [i]all[/i] proceeds go to FBi.

music Gorillaz

Thursday, 16th December - 8PM
@ Sydney Entertainment Centre

The bomb has dropped: Gorillaz are packing their virtual suitcases for a first-ever tour of Australia. Mysterious bass player Murdoc Niccals, demonic drummer Russel Hobbs, girly guitarist Noodle (who was rumored to be dead) and lead vocalist 2D (real name Stu-Pot) will be boarding an ex-military chopper to cross the...

music The Chemical Brothers

Thursday, 10th March - 8PM
@ Sydney Entertainment Centre

A night with The Chemical Brothers is a total assault on the senses - ears, eyes, tongue, nostrils - nothing is left untouched.

travel music Peats Ridge 2010

Wednesday, 29th December - 10AM
@ Glenworth Valley

Fancy seeing in the New Year under the stars, dancing to live music on a soft green meadow tucked away deep within an emerald rainforest? Not so keen on traveling halfway across the country to get there? Well, good news Sydney festival lovers: Peats Ridge Festival has just revealed a...

music Field Day 2011

Saturday, 1st January - 12PM
@ The Domain

Walk the streets of London or NYC on the first day of the year and you'll find only emptied cold streets echoing to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. But here in a city where sunscreen and festive cheer walk hand-in-hand, it seems only natural to stretch midnight celebrations 'til...

music First Aid Kit

Thursday, 9th September - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

The mesmerising voices of these Scandinavian sisters could act as an alternative painkiller for any of the aches and grumbles that come from staring at a computer screen too long or hugging your iPhone to sleep.

music Good Vibrations Festival 2011

Friday, 12th February - 12PM
@ Centennial Parklands

For some, it's simply a Beach Boys tune, for others a '90s track that evokes flashbacks of Marky Mark's six-pack, but for us Sydneysiders, we get to feel the excitations and sweet, sweet sensations of Good Vibrations every summer. This year, the festival has outdone itself by announcing a lovely...

music Leonard Cohen

Monday, 8th November - 7PM - Tuesday, 9th November - 7PM
@ Acer Arena

Novelist, poet, musician and fully ordained Zen Buddhist monk: if anyone's played his fair hand at career chameleon, it's Leonard Cohen. After leaving Australia dizzy in January '09 with what was believed to be the greatest tour of his career, the 76-year-old (who was born in the same year as...