The Good Things Festival Sideshows Are Here!

Over their awe-inspiring 40+ year career, Milwaukee icons VIOLENT FEMMES have had an undeniable impact on the broad history and landscape of alternative music. From performing as an acoustic punk band on the streets of Wisconsin, inspired by Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps and The Velvet Underground, VIOLENT FEMMES would go on to themselves inspire the likes of a wide array of artists, including Pink, John Cusack, Mark Morris, The Smiths, The Pixies and countless others.

Releasing their self-titled debut album in 1983, Violent Femmes would go on to attain a platinum RIAA certification, as well as hit double platinum status in Australia for their first ever full length release. Going on to release ten studio albums across their enduring career so far, VIOLENT FEMMES have also become a mainstay of festivals, clubs and theatres in over 20 countries worldwide, with their raw sound and honest lyricism boasting a rare multi-generational appeal alongside an electrifying stage presence that truly has to be seen to be believed.

Returning to Australia following the curated The World Is A Vampire Festival last year, as well as the recent release of a thirteenth studio album, Aghori Mhori Mei, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman BILLY CORGAN is set to bring his spirited set Down Under to wow the Good Things Festival crowd alongside his headline sideshows, supported by The Delta Riggs as his backing band.

A man of many creative hats, working as a solo artist, producer, songwriter, poet, wrestling promoter, podcast host and café owner, this Chicago native will be treating Aussie fans this December to tracks from his expansive solo catalogue, comprising of TheFutureEmbrace (2005), Aegea (2014), Ogilala (2017) and, most recently, Cotillions (2019), as well as songs penned by CORGAN for his Grammy Award-winning band The Smashing Pumpkins.

From sludgy sonic origins to becoming one of the most influential and iconic rock bands of the modern era, Grammy Award-winning act MASTODON have defied and annihilated sonic and thematic boundaries since first emerging back in 2000.

Channeling a rare creative force that has seen them featured on Game of Thrones, Adult Swim, and DC comics films, alongside six Grammy nominations over their career to date, and a win in 2018 for Sultan’s Curse, MASTODON have manifested their uncompromising creative vision across eight full-length albums, including 2004’s seminal Leviathan which landed on Rolling Stone‘s coveted The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time, and most recently on 2021’s Hushed and Grim; a double-LP that took meditations on grief and transformed them into moments of melodic mourning and raging bursts of energy.

In 2024, guitarist and songwriter KERRY KING unleashed his first solo album outside of his esteemed career with thrash titans Slayer, with From Hell I Rise doling out KING‘s insatiable brand of blunt power, incisive lyrical themes and an aural assault to make any heavy metal fan weak at the knees.

Bringing a taste of his trademark fury to Australia this year, fans can expect some unforgettable brutality courtesy of KING‘s new solo material, as well as some Slayer classics thrown in as the kicker. Prepare for pure domination

After almost a decade between visits, 2024 marks the long-awaited return of THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM to Australian stages. Reuniting back in 2022, THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM‘s hotly anticipated comeback album, 2023’s History Books, weaved the band’s soulful breed of life-affirming punk alongside themes spanning everything from mortality to mental illness.

Since first coming together in 2007, THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM became renowned for their powerful, populist sound, boasting raw emotional might along fortified by their punk roots, resulting in an exhilarating and unique take on American rock’n’roll. In 2008, the New Jersey-based band officially broke out on a global scale with their album The ’59 Sound, while their 2010 LP American Slang debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart, and 2012’s Handwritten scored top 10 chart debuts in eight countries.

Fresh off a pair of 2024 Download Festival performances, and celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their fan-favourite LP, 2004’s A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, Texan pop punks BOWLING FOR SOUP will be bringing the vibes and their legendary live show Down Under this December, with Good Things Festival and their headline sideshows marking the group’s first Aussie shows in over fifteen years.

Arena fillers and festival headliners in their own right, BOWLING FOR SOUP are a band who make every show feel like a personal party, whether playing to 500 or 50,000 people. With hits like Girl All The Bad Guys Want, 1985, High School Never Endsand the Disney-powered Today Is Gonna Be A Great Day, fans can also likely expect some cuts from their 2022 record Pop Drunk Snot Bread, hailed as their best album in fifteen years.

Influenced by early 90s and 00s pop-punk, TAYLOR ACORN’s sound is imbued with youthful exuberance and relatability, tackling mental health struggles and head-on with catchy hooks and earnest vulnerability.

Orlando emo sensations SLEEPING WITH SIRENS are no strangers to devoted Australian crowds, returning once again to Good Things Festival, along with three special headline sideshows, to deliver on stratospheric hooks and huge sing-a-longs.

After fourteen years, seven studio albums, and thousands of shows in the process, SLEEPING WITH SIRENS have survived and thrived, outlasting many of their peers, while also cultivating their own immersive path through modern alternative rock. Cleaving honest lyricism with earth-shattering percussion and soaring riffs, SLEEPING WITH SIRENS also deeply connect via their future-forward perspective and a genuine adoration for their fans, ultimately emerging as a formidable beacon of hope in a world desperate to find silver linings.

It’s been a long time between Aussie shows for Nebraska-hailing rockers 311, with the 90s flagbearers last performing down under in 1998 as part of Vans Warped Tour. But now, the Nebraska-hailing band are bound down under this December for Good Things Festival, and to also tick off some headline sideshows while they’re in town.

Mixing rock, rap, reggae, and funk into their own hybrid creation, for over three decades 311 have maintained their standing as one of the genre’s most entertaining live acts, with over 2,000 shows across 27 countries under their belts. Also boasting as being one of the longest running original lineups in rock, joining iconic acts like U2 and Radiohead, 311 have released fourteen studio albums, recently releasing their brand new LP Full Bloom, and have previously shared stages with The Offspring, Snoop Dogg, Cypress Hill and many more.

Joining American regegades DESTROY BOYS for a Good Things Festival sideshow, beloved Aussie alt-rock singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist ALEX LAHEY will bring her melodically-charged and endlessly relatable anthems to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney this December.

Starting in 2015 by members Alexia Roditis and Violet Maugba while they were still in high school, DESTROY BOYS may have been brought together by punk rock; but this band expands beyond the punk tropes, embracing lived experiences into their four studio albums.

School drama and elitist cliques encountered as teens detailed on their earlier material has since given way to the pain of relationships and feelings of misunderstanding and isolation experienced by young people navigating a hybrid of both the physical and digital worlds, with their recent 2024 album Funeral Soundtrack #4 buffeting between playful fun, sharpened punk, and a raw core beating underneath.

From her debut 2017 album, I Love You Like A Brother, through to her 2023 third full-length The Answer Is Always Yes, ALEX LAHEY‘s ability to find comfort in the discomfort, while also crafting earworms that touch the soul, has seen her in hot demand touring globally while also receiving two ARIA Award nominations and securing pop culture infamy appearing on the soundtrack for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater1+2 and on Sony Picture Animation’s The Mitchells vs. the Machines.

DIY rock troubadours FRANK TURNER AND THE SLEEPING SOULS will mark another return to Australia as part of the Good Things Festival, this time supporting TURNER‘s acclaimed new album, Undefeated.

With ten solo albums under his belt, TURNER began his career fronting the post-hardcore act Million Dead, before turning his hand to more acoustic, folk-punk-pop rebel fare as a solo artist following the dissolution of Million Dead in 2005. Accompanied by his backing band, THE SLEEPING SOULS, TURNER retains boundless creativity in his sonic output, with Undefeated emerging as a kaleidoscopic affair, complete with power-pop, high-spirited sing-a-longs, rock grandeur and some breakneck rollicking punk; ultimately, odes for the outliers and warriors alike.

Pennsylvanian outfit FROM ASHES TO NEW have climbed to the front of the rock vanguard, embracing the freedom of hybridity and experimenting with hard rock, hip-hop, electronic, and alternative sounds.

Since 2013, FROM ASHES TO NEW have gone on to generate hundreds of millions of streams, perform sold out shows across the country, release four studio albums, and garner acclaim from LoudWire, Alternative Press and more. Formidable purveyors of music designed to inspire you to get up, move forward, and maybe even make a change, FROM ASHES TO NEW have toured their explosive live show both as festival favourites, and with Set It Off, Nothing More, Motionless In White and Bullet For My Valentine.

Backing up with another trip Down Under following 2023’s sold out ‘The Midnight Demon Club’ tour, Cape Cod iconoclasts HIGHLY SUSPECT will bring their rule-breaking rock philosophy to the festival stage and their own headline sideshows with cuts from their shiny new full-length, As Above, So Below.

A multi-Grammy Award-nominated and gold-certified band, HIGHLY SUSPECT‘s chemically-inbalanced mix of gritty guitars, haunting piano, off-kilter synths, hip-hop production and captivating vocals ignite with a cinematic vision, transforming the group into a phenomenon, armed with hundreds of millions of streams, and beloved by their diehard legion of fans, known as “MCID” (My Crew Is Dope).

Swedish heavy purveyors IMMINENCE will introduce Aussie crowds to their uncompromising alt-metalcore vision this December – and this is definitely one band metalheads do not want to miss.

With their distinct use of classical string arrangements blended with the unwavering ferocity of Scandinavian metal, IMMINENCE‘s sound and visual universe sets them apart as one of the most innovative and exciting acts in the modern metal scene. IMMINENCE most recently released their bludgeoning and acclaimed fifth full-length album, The Black, which relished in razor-sharp innovation and immersive theatricality; a feast for the ears and the senses alike.