The street-style festival billed to bring urban-cool back to Newcastle didn’t disappoint Saturday, as headliners belted bangers from Wickham Park across the suburbs.
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This That returned in 2018 with arguably the biggest line-up in the youth festival’s four-year run despite early controversy when Sticky Fingers cancelled their planned performance amid allegations of abuse and violence in July.
Gold Coast singer/songwriter Amy Shark joined a stellar line up of acts including The Rubens, Illy and US electro whiz RL Grime.
Shark, who spoke with the Herald Weekender before the event about her rise to musical success on the back of her hit 2016 song Adore.
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When Adore hit the triple J airwaves in 2016, Shark was then unsigned, unrepresneted, and had directed the single’s video clip herself.
“Every photo is at a place that means something to me from my past and my childhood,” she explains. “Every shot is taken on the Gold Coast. So the video was shot in my old high school hall [Southport High] and all the outdoor takes are around my old primary school.”
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Listeners loved it. Shark found herself smack bang in the middle of a record label bidding war. And before she knew it she was on a plane headed to the US and its notoriously fickle music industry.
“I played thousands of shows in Brisbane and the Gold Coast before Adorebut it was all great training for the world I live in now,” she said.
“If it wasn’t for the regional arts grant I would not be here at all. I owe them a lot.”
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As the festival wrapped up Saturday night, hundreds of music fans crowded onto Albert Street and the Pacific Highway, which had been temporarily closed, toward Beaumont Street.
