You’ve heard of a pub crawl but what about a shed crawl?

The principal is the same but what’s on offer is a different thing altogether at this year’s BLEACH festival. The event turns the Gold Coast into a busy arts hub August 3 to 13 with events from the beach to hinterland.

Which brings me to the Acoustic Life of Sheds, a unique event – a series of gigs on a shed-hopping circuit that was a hit last year. So artistic director Rosie Dennis has brought it back.

“I’m really excited about Acoustic Life of Sheds,” Dennis explains. “You go from property to property, shed to shed in your car and enjoy four different concerts. You just keep driving up the Currumbin Valley. There are chooks and dogs and music and it’s a lot of fun.”

The musicians spend time on site preparing shows to suit their particular sheds and the line-up this year features Brian Ritchie, Christine Johnston and other artists all performing in these funky rural sheds.

The program blurb captures the flavor with this admonition – “Grab a picnic, perch on a hay bale and listen to original works in a setting like no other.”

Unique events such as this are being held up and down the Gold Coast. As someone who spent their teenage years growing up on the Gold Coast BLEACH is a revelation … and something of a surprise. What was once a cultural desert is now in full bloom it seems propelled by the vitality of HOTA and by BLEACH and other satellite events.

The cultural highlight of Broadbeach was, back in the day, the Broadbeach International Hotel’s Celebrity Room, a Vegas like venue which drew acts like the American singer Lovelace Watkins. It was like something out of an Austin Powers movie.

Now Broadbeach is the administrative home and a venue for BLEACH. With an ever-expanding footprint this year’s festival features a hub located in the recently opened Broadbeach Cultural Precinct which is home to Placemakers, the organization that is the architect of BLEACH and BIG CITY LIGHTS.

Broadbeach will be home to a festival within a festival with five tents running shows featuring live music, drag acts, cabaret, theatre, comedy and spoken word.

“We’re pretty excited about what is on offer at Broadbeach this year,” Rosie Dennis says. ” One of the things I really love is that we have this 16-metre barge on the Nerang River that will feature a concert series called River Songs. The setting is made a sensory delight by the audience listening to the performances through headphones on the banks of the river. It will be a truly intimate yet engaging experience.”

Artists include leading Australian percussionist Claire Edwardes and Brisbane duo Shugorei among others.

As well as Broadbeach there’s the North Burleigh Hub where the coming of BLEACH will be ushered in with a powerful performance of Heartland, an evocative and highly acclaimed work by world renowned Queensland didgeridoo player William Barton who will perform alongside his partner in life and music, violinist Veronique Serret.

Heartland’s lyrics are by Barton’s mum, Delmae and it promises to be a beautiful experience to hear this work played by the beach at Burleigh at sunrise at on August 3 to kick off BLEACH. Okay, so you will have to be there at 6am to hear it but it will be worth it.

There’ll be free music daily at the North Burleigh Hub where you may find yourself in the midst of a group of weird people in inflatable orange suits, part of the roaming installation Looks Like a Tourist. The Gold Coast Regional Botanic Gardens at Benowa is another venue and one of the treats there will be a performance of Katie Noonan’s tribute show to Joni Mitchell’s classic album Blue on August 13.

While Noonan, one of Queensland’s most talented performers, confesses that the album Blue, which is celebrating its 52nd birthday this year, came out before she was born but it has become part of her life now. She has been touring this show and is near the end of that tour.

“My BLEACH concert will be concert 37 of a 40-date tour,” Noonan says. “We do the album in the correct order of the songs and I try to do it as respectfully as possible without meandering off course. “We finish with some tunes from other albums and of course you can’t do a Joni Mitchell show without doing Big Yellow Taxi.”

It’s just another treat in store at BLEACH which is bigger than ever this year. Rosie Dennis has been at the helm since just before the pandemic hit and she had one festival cancelled with others pared back.

“But now we are back to normal and it feels good,” she says. “It definitely feels like we are putting on a festival.”