Golden Plains 2026: A Wildly Beautiful Thing

Saturday morning Sup’, pre-dancing… photo: Hannah Cooper 

‘Welcome to Golden Plains, A multi-dimensional musical portal where invention, Inspiration and imagination converge… With you at it’s centre. Surrender to the music; it’s the sound of victory, A triumph of the will, a cavalcade of the senses… Sight, sound, touch and smell. Inhale deeply, it smells like home.’

Let me take you on a journey through this magical ‘musical portal’ that is Golden Plains, where weary feet dance on, and time melts away… 

Golden Plains is the quiet murmuring of anticipation on Saturday morning as sleepy  bodies adorn their boots and pile into the car before the sun has let out its first yawn. It is the man of the hour (and every hour) Uncle Barry looking out at each person in the crowd during the Welcome to Wadawurrung Country and saying, ‘I see you seeing me’. Golden Plains is someone leaving their boots in the middle of the Sup’ to walk barefoot through the smoking ceremony and another crowd member retrieving their unattended runaway sock to return it to its shoe home. It is the rustling of blue gum leaves moving to their own rhythm, while music echoes through the valley beckoning you back to the dancefloor once more.

Golden Plains is the diplomacy of the drop toilet line, and the honesty of couch borrowing. It is clapping for the sun as it winks down on us through a very cloudy weekend. And it is recognising the beauty and knowledge of Country as it envelops all us dancing people on its grassy slope. 

For any reader unfamiliar, I’m talking about the eighteenth edition of Golden Plains festival, set in the little regional town of Meredith. Golden Plains got its name from the location of Golden Plains Shire, and was born of the people’s great love for Meredith festival each December, and an itch to create a smaller Autumnal version. From bridging musical genres with their ‘One Stage Fits All The Good Stuff Policy’, to the exquisite global foods, patrons of all ages, platforming of local sovereign Wadawurrung peoples and support for its local community - Golden Plains is truly a beautiful part of the world. I don’t know many other festivals that can pivot so expertly between immense and purposeful punk, to blooming soundscapes of harp-lead folk, to underground and energetic rap. But if anyone can, it’s Aunty Meredith. 

Speaking of music, what a breathtaking lineup! And no better place to start than the grace and joy that was Marlon William’s performance on Saturday night. Joined by his band The Yarra Benders, and Māori Kapa Haka group Ngā Mātai Pūrua, this live experience induced a palpable awe in the crowd. Through winding harmonies, leafy instrumentation and Williams’ grounded stage presence, he underscored the significance of speaking and singing in Te reo Māori language, and presented a clear and radical rebuttal to the New Zealand government’s recent systematic attempts to threaten Māori cultural heritage. You could feel in the air that William’s potent and defiant words of resistance, expression and celebration moved the whole crowd like the undercurrent of a river. And from what I could see the connection was reciprocal, as Williams smiled mid-song and shared, "It’s hard to sing a song about loneliness with you guys." 

Earlier that day many more stars graced the Amphitheatre, including Public Figures who arrived like a bolt of lightning, giving the weekend of dance a jumpstart. They delivered hard-hitting truths about respect and identity through powerful lyricism and electric melodies. Later, Obongjayar hit the stage off the back of his AU/NZ tour, making standing still no longer an option. He shared his philosophy on being each other's light in the darkness which sent an energetic glow across the dancefloor. BADBADNOTGOOD captured nothing but jazzified goodness, and Frost Children set the night on fire with a bass so low and reverberant that I felt the trees might swim through the soil.

We emerged on Sunday to the warm and wistful grooves of Way Dynamic followed by the spiritual, soulful experience of Kee’ahn. Their tunes welcomed us back like a sun soaked hug into a new day. Upchuck was a certified classic with cut-through lyrics that shone a sharp light on the entwinement of black and brown peoples’ experiences - past, present and future. This was followed by Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek’s meandering folk-electric melodies that twinkled amidst the gums. At the magical minute of 8:10PM, Jalen Ngonda arrived to transport us back to a Motown feel, and reminded us that those early blues influences live on across all aspects of contemporary music.

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A boot in the air for Jalen Ngonda, photo: Hannah Cooper 

​​​​Then to top it all off, bringing out an outstanding ballerina, multiple sparkling gymnasts, a supreme collection of vocalists, an iridescent flower person, a pair of gorillas, a human sea urchin, and a set design that could fly you to Mars, Basement Jaxx took flight across the stage. Speaking to one of the gorillas post-show, Zoe Marshall aka Mozë articulated what I can only imagine to be true, “I can now die happy knowing I was a gorilla for Basement Jaxx at Golden Plains.”

The beauty of this line up’s sound was strengthened further by their unwillingness to shy away from the pain and disconnection in our country and world today. Instead, they addressed it openly, with every word and note striking a chord, and emphasized the crucial role that we all play and the power we hold as a community of people. Uncle Barry - the welcomer, the wise elder, the leader, the speaker and the listener that he is - embodied this ethos. “Treat Country like it’s your own skin” he told us on day one. His warm, comedic, familial recounting of the Seven Sisters dreaming characterises the beauty, the commitment and the necessity of this festival.

Overall, Golden Plains transcends many other festival experiences as it is underpinned by a fundamental sense of togetherness. While along the journey, the audience member may be ‘at it’s centre’, as the poem suggests, it is difficult to experience the full beauty of GP on an individual level. This space is defined by a collective sharing, and coexistence of a great spectrum of genres, music tastes, tents, footwear, ages, interests, beings and identities. Simply put, this magical ‘musical portal’ that is Golden Plains is a wildly beautiful thing. And in the words of Uncle Barry (I’m paraphrasing here), “no nukes, power to the people, be kind, look after one another, and be yourself”.