Review: Nannup Music Festival in Nannup

Nannup Music Festival in Nannup
w/ Steve Poltz, A.C Saunders, Wanita, Rachel Laven, Sea Swallow, Vanessa Jade and more
Friday, February 27 – Sunday, March 1, 2026

Every music festival has seminal moments that become part of its legacy. Depending on whom you spoke to at the 2026 instalment of the Nannup Music Festival, those moments ranged from the magical musical spell cast by Jeffery Martin as the festival wound down on Sunday night to emcee Justin Walshe’s anarchic ramblings about mangelwurzel that echoed across the township while introducing Formidable Vegetables the night prior. But, on a night when the world again found itself under attack, one of this year’s most memorable moments came via the galvanising conclusion to Steve Poltz’s Saturday night set.

As the San Diegan singer-songwriter let the amphitheatre audience know he had just one song remaining, he softened the blow by calling for A.C Saunders to join him on stage. After spying Rachel Laven pressed against the front row barrier, Poltz quickly added that the Texan singer-songwriter was also going to join him on stage. He then changed his plans, telling the crowd the duo were in fact going to join Laven in the audience for a rendition of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young. As Poltz disappeared off stage and a cascade of acoustic notes continued to ring from his guitar, the pair found Laven before making their way into the midst of the crowd. As the trio disappeared into the audience, backed by Saunders and Laven, Poltz led an impromptu crowd choir of the Dylan lullaby.

As news of missiles raining down on the Middle East spread through the festival, the crowd’s choir combined with the song’s guiding morality and sparked a much-needed communion of empathy, unity, and joy. It’s moments like that which cemented the Nannup Music Festival as one of the premier events on the festival circuit. A lauded harbinger of local, national, and international music talent, Nannup has long presented its impressive lineups with a community-minded sense of heart and soul. As affecting and memorable as Poltz’s finale was, it was but one of many enchanting music moments from across the weekend.

The festival kicked off on Friday evening with six hours of music spread across eight stages, perfectly highlighting the breadth of this year’s lineup. From the soulful acoustic serenading of the likes of Broome’s The Gray Brothers and Ireland’s The Ocelots to the high-octane gusto of Fremantle’s Ratshit Strap and Los Removalists, the day one schedule provided an enticing prelude to what was to come. Saturday morning was greeted by grey skies and intermittent rain. While that might have limited the audience at Vanessa Jade’s opening set on the Tigerville stage to those huddled under the canopies, it provided a suitable moody setting for her beautiful and contemplative yearnings about lost love and inner strength. From her immaculate opening song, Worse Now, to her latest single, Go Your Way, and a new song titled Adrian, which was recently recorded with Kasey Chambers, Jade’s heart-on-the-sleeve writing was as fearless as her delivery was bewitching.

Across at the Amphitheatre, Sea Swallow had appropriate roots-infused songs drenched in timelessness for any occasion. The Fremantle-based duo embraced the inclement weather, fittingly opening their set with This Morning/U/The Rain. Sea Swallow had a special connection to the Nannup Music Festival. The festival was where Bill Lawrie and Claire Moodie first met, a story Moodie recounted before the duo launched into a gorgeous rendition of Starting Out Again. With the dampness stubbornly lingering, it was a full house across at the Nannup Town Hall for Canberra-based songsmith and raconteur Fred Smith. Last year Smith was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to music and foreign affairs, with his gentle voice providing a poignant and seductive tool for his deftly crafted, wry socio-political insights.

Songwriting was also the focal point at Miranda Aitken’s The Secret Life of Song. Along with Rachel Laven, Aitken had gathered Australia’s Queen of Honky Tonk, Wanita, and Kangaroos with Machine Guns’ frontman, Archer, for an in-the-round performance and an enthralling discussion about the craft from four distinctly different writing perspectives. The song circle was followed by another masterclass in the art of songcraft when the Belle Miners took the stage. The Australian-Canadian folk-pop trio channelled their heartfelt songwriting through lush three-part harmonies. Having focused their current run of shows on Western Australia, playing everywhere from Broome to Denmark and all points in between, their festival performances were a celebratory end to their tour.

While there was no shortage of countrified singer-songwriters on this year’s schedule, few came with the pedigree of Texan Rachel Laven. Channelling her western experiences into songs exploring topics as varied as wildfires to falling for the lead in a high school production and visiting her cigarette-smoking grandmother, Laven delighted the mid-afternoon audience. After astutely pointing out Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels, Laven opened her impressive set with the autobiographical Heels. Ramblin’ Soul was an exquisite tribute to her much-missed aunt, whilst Put Me in a Town was a clever and comedic ode to visiting her grandmother in a tiny community outside of San Antonio, Texas.

As Helen Townsend and the Wayward Hearts staunchly kept the country flame alive at the Amphitheatre, Wanita turned the Town Hall into a haven for Western swing. Brilliantly backed by Kangaroos with Machine Guns, with Luke Dux on electric guitar, Ryan Dux on upright bass, Todd Pickett on drums, and Archer on the dancefloor, Wanita exuded her delightfully raw and rowdy charm through a powerful set of emotionally charged and deceptively packaged, socially impactful songs. As Wanita then swapped places with Archer for a set by Kangaroos with Machine Guns, A.C Saunders took to the Amphitheatre stage. Having recently opened a run of east coast shows for Willie Watson, Saunders delivered an exquisite set capped off by the beautiful yet brutal Telephones.

Opening with Wrong Town, Steve Poltz quickly made the Amphitheatre stage his own, with the audience quickly following suit. “You’re about to watch a show starring me; I don’t know what you’re about to hear or see,” Poltz bellowed the song’s opening lines over a cascade of infectious acoustic notes. What followed was a set of songs and tales as heartfelt and moving as they were hilarious and uplifting. And then there were the sing-alongs. Along with Poltz turning over the chorus of perennial favourite You Were Meant for Me to the crowd (insisting the final refrain be so quiet the audience only needed to think the lyrics), Poltz also enlisted their services on the chorus of the riotous Folksinger before deftly changing the mood again with his in-situ performance of Forever Young.

With the No Mountain Band at the Nannup Hotel, Nathan Cavaleri at the Town Hall, and Formidable Vegetable at the Amphitheatre, Saturday was closed out with a musical frenzy. Savanah Soloman eased festival-goers into Sunday morning with a sprightly set at The Secret Garden as Portuguese-Canadian Nico Paulo wistfully seduced the Town Hall. While Sunday saw a cavalcade of impressive singer-songwriters from Albert The Second to Lemon Myrtle, Tom Rivers, Mia Kelly, and Liv Cartledge, the evening session was unquestionably the domain of Jeffrey Martin. In 2023, the Portland-based former high school teacher released his fourth album, which was also one of the standout albums of the year.

A quiet and introspective masterpiece, Thank God We Left the Garden is a mesmerising journey through the inner soul of one of American music’s brightest ascending stars. So too was his Sunday night performance at the Amphitheatre, and nowhere was that more evident than in his hypnotic delivery of one of the album’s standout tracks, Red Station Wagon. In drawing on a youthful recollection of spurning a friend’s open-hearted confession with a homophobic slur, the song is an emotive declaration of regret for the malice inflicted. With his acoustic guitar pressed high against his chest, Martin’s delicate picking and world-weary vocalising made the song even more affecting. It was a hauntingly beautiful moment that will live long in the memories of all who experienced it.

The problem with legacies is that they leave a lot to live up to. But that has never been a problem for the Nannup Music Festival. Having evolved from the Southwest Folk Festival and overseen by the Nannup Music Club for over 35 years, the festival has not only supported both the local community and the broader music population but also established itself as a staple of Western Australia’s March long weekend. In addition to presenting 100 performances across eight stages, the festival hosted an array of workshops and youth activities, camping, busking, and food and market vendors, all of which combined to make the event one of the most user-friendly, community-minded, and musically enlightening festival experiences to be had. As visiting Canadian singer-songwriter Mia Kelly so aptly declared as proceedings wound down on Sunday night, “I would like to crawl into the belly of Nannup Music Festival and live there forever.” Wouldn’t we all?

BRETT LEIGH DICKS

Photos by Brett Leigh Dicks