This year’s Rising festival is even more ambitious than usual. From June 1 to 16 it presents local and international talent across multiple disciplines in surprising and enlightening ways.
There are one-offs and curated experiences around every corner, to the point where the options can be overwhelming. So here’s a cheat sheet for planning your Rising experience over the King’s Birthday weekend, with lunch and dinner ideas included.
Saturday June 8
12pm–8pm: Day Tripper at Melbourne Town Hall, Capitol Theatre, Night Trade and Max Watts.
Day Tripper is an epic (eight-hour), genre-shredding hang that doubles as a lucky dip of world-class artists. Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def)’s live tribute to the late MF DOOM is reason enough to make this an essential ticket, but consider also a raft of acts that includes London brooders Bar Italia (making their Melbourne debut); Brighton duo Memorials (featuring members of Electrelane and Wire); US footwork producer Jlin; and moody Welsh janglers The Tubs. Look for local heroes like Surprise Chef, Sarah Mary Chadwick, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding and Wet Kiss, too.
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And that’s just at the Town Hall. Downstairs at nearby Max Watt’s, duo HTRK will celebrate its 21st birthday with a headline set and a personally curated line-up that includes Scottish trio Still House Plants, Danish composer Astrid Sonne and other talent from closer to home. For a nifty bonus, anyone attending Day Tripper will enjoy priority entry at The Capitol’s 24 Hour Rock Show.
12pm Saturday to 12pm Sunday: 24 Hour Rock Show at The Capitol Theatre
24 Hour Rock Show is a round-the-clock marathon of wonderfully obscure music documentaries curated by English conceptual artist Jeremy Deller. It’s a free event, so it’s ideal for popping in and out of at your leisure (especially if you’re attending Day Tripper). The best-known selection is probably 1986’s evergreen Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Other revealing time capsules include tour snapshots of Amyl and the Sniffers, No Fixed Address, Warumpi Band, Grace Jones, INXS and Can. But the best part is walking in and not knowing exactly what’s going to be on the screen.
Dinner: Supernormal
Supernormal, the Asian-focused Flinders Lane destination, is great for sharing dishes among a group. Especially if you’re seafood fans. And the generous hours make it perfect for grabbing dinner later than usual.
7.30pm: Onefour at Festival Hall
Breakout Samoan-Australian drill crew Onefour reps the streets of Mount Druitt with in-real-time urgency. They’ve been targeted by police and profiled in a Netflix doco – but for all their signature swagger, there’s a surprising degree of sensitivity at play. The group’s Rising appearance at the 5000-plus-capacity Festival Hall (which has hosted everyone from the Beatles to Rage Against the Machine) marks their first-ever headline show in Melbourne, making up for a sold-out tour that was unceremoniously cancelled. Supporting will be Aria winner Miss Kaninna from Tasmania, and Western Sydney drill peers RFA17 and LF70.
Sunday June 9
All day: The Blak Infinite at Fed Square & Pay the Rent at State Library of Victoria
These free showcases of First Peoples creators will run throughout Rising. The Blak Infinite spans installations, commissions and conversations at Fed Square, curated by Yorta Yorta woman Kimberley Moulton and Taungurung woman Kate ten Buuren. The centrepiece is veteran artist and activist Richard Bell’s EMBASSY, an extended riff on the tent-based 1972 protests at Parliament House. This new installation includes film screenings every day and in-person talks with diverse artistic voices each Saturday. Pay the Rent is Richard Bell’s simple but devastating real-time tally of the rent owed to First Nations people by the Australian Government since Federation. Despite its local focus, it’s making its Australian debut here, after previous stops in London and elsewhere. Writ in bright red electronic numbers, it demands you don’t look away. Immersive projections will also run nightly from 6pm to 11pm – including Tarryn Love’s ngaka - look here, which shares stories from Sky Country, and Tony Albert’s cosmic BEAM ME UP The Art of Abduction.
Lunch: Mabu Mabu Big Esso
Native Australian ingredients sing out at Fed Square’s Mabu Mabu Big Esso, by Torres Strait Islander Nornie Bero. There are spear grass crumpets and crocodile tongue on the autumn menu, and the all-day bar and kitchen makes original and zesty co*cktails with ingredients like peppermint gum, pepperberry, lemon myrtle and other local flora. There are wines, beers and mocktails too, plus deep selections of boutique spirits. Plus there’s no beating the central appeal of this location.
5pm: Yasiin Bey at PICA
As well as his MF DOOM tribute at Day Tripper, Yasiin Bey headlines PICA to celebrate the 15th anniversary of his ambitious 2009 album The Ecstatic (released as Mos Def). The record is a breathless, urgent and moody run across global musical styles, tapping iconic producers like Madlib, the Neptunes, Oh No and the late J Dilla. The Ecstatic remains unavailable on streaming services, so this is a rare opportunity to experience it in full. This performance brings Yasiin Bey to Australia for the first time in 13 years, with support from Gunai/Kurnai and Yorta Yorta producer DJ PGZ.
Dinner: Bangpop
Being down near South Wharf is great reason to hit up Bangpop, a coolly casual hang that celebrates the full sensory joy of Thai street food. It’s every bit as colourful as the Lego bar left behind by previous tenant Sharing House. The massive space makes things feel that much more communal, and the smaller plates are easy to pass around a table crowded with your gig-going mates.
Monday June 10
Late lunch: Cookie
Cookie has remained a classic for good reason. The location is perfect, the vibe is busy but relaxed, and the Thai dishes are just as in-demand as the prodigious co*cktail and beer lists. Whether you head there for a proper feed or just some post-lunch snacks and drinks before heading to Town Hall, no one in your group is going to be sorry you suggested this ol’ reliable.
3pm & 6pm: Hear My Eyes at Melbourne Town Hall
This is the kind of thing Rising does so well: a screening of Clive Barker’s 1987 S&M-horror banger Hellraiser with a new live score from Chicago sound artist Hieroglyphic Being and Melbourne’s Robin Fox, who also adds signature lasers to the mix. There’s been a recent revival of interest in Barker, who created both the Hellraiser and Candyman series (among a slew of influential stories, novels, plays and more), and this sonic refreshing is just the thing to reframe a familiar entry in the horror canon. Allow two hours total for the experience.
Dinner: Asado
Finish off your extended weekend with a stop at Asado, a barbeque-driven oasis in Southbank that serves Argentinian-style meats and wines with a playful Spanish influence. Even the vegetarians in your crew will be impressed by what Asado can do with a humble carrot or onion. And for all the scene-stealing potential of the speciality cuts, the tapas and sides are, once again, very handy for sharing around.
8pm: Fever Ray at Hamer Hall
Karin Dreijer, originally known as half of Swedish duo the Knife, brings their enigmatic solo-ish outing to Australia for the first time. On last year’s album Radical Romantics they collaborated again with their brother and Knife partner Olof Dreijer, alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails). The Fever Ray live show expands even more on the tones and textures dreamed up in Dreijer’s head. It’s a fitting culmination to a festival that revels in breaking away from safe choices and conventional wisdom.
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