Music

People Are Very Divided Over The 2020 Splendour Line-Up

"How hard is it to find a female headliner?"

by Joseph Earp  19 February 2020
splendour lineup 2020 reactions photo

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Early this morning, the packed Splendour In The Grass 2020 lineup dropped — and almost immediately, punters took to their socials to weigh in.

The festival boasts Flume, Tyler, The Creator and The Strokes as headliners, with acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dillon Francis, Violent Soho, JPEGMAFIA, and King Princess filling out the lower tiers. For a squiz over the full line-up, head over here.

Initially, it was the three headliners that garnered attention from festival goers — The Strokes had the nostalgia-lovers among us buzzing, excited by the prospect of the band potentially playing new material.

Some, however, expressed concern, given the band’s past history with the festival, while others felt like the choice was a little predictable.

Tyler, The Creator, returning to Australian shores only months after his last string of dates in our country, attracted a similarly split reaction.

Most surprising of all was the reaction from triple j host Bridget Hustwaite, who took to Twitter to express slight disappointment with the line-up, noting that so many of the headliners had been in the country very recently.

Similarly, she noted the lack of female headliners, while others remarked on the uneven gender split in general.

But hey, at least one of the musicians attracted almost uniformly positive reactions — one Mr. Flume, AKA Harley Streten, he of ass-eating fame.

Seems like you really can’t please everyone all the time. Which might well be a continuing problem for Splendour in the Grass moving forward. How can you appeal to the mainstream, when the mainstream itself is so divided?