In remote Australia, a concert becomes something much bigger

Inside Guts: the solar-powered music tour connecting remote NT communities and Australian bands Wed 8 Jul 2026 at 11:00am Half a dozen kids swarm around the drum kit as Melbourne band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever rips through a set at full tilt. The kids aren't supposed to be on stage, but they are compelled. Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the excitement of the gig in their small, remote community, maybe they just want to bash things. As the band hit the outro of their 2017 song French Press, the youngsters grab sticks and start gleefully bashing along. "They never planned it," fellow performer Stella Donnelly says later. "They just got up … it was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen." At this concert in a remote Arnhem Land community, the kids show us what pure joy looks like all night. They climb onstage, they breathlessly chase each other around, they grab the microphone when they can get away with it. "It was just magic," Donnelly says. Moments like this sit at the heart of Guts, a roaming, solar-powered tour that snakes its way through some of the most remote communities in the Northern Territory, bringing together bands from the city and the bush to hold concerts in areas that don't host a lot of touring musicians. It sounds straightforward: a string of gigs in parks and community spaces. But it's not really about the shows. "This tour isn't about selling tickets," co-founder Jack Parsons says. "It's about experiencing and learning." From a Melbourne porch to remote communities Guts founders Parsons and Jimmy Clark first met at a share house in Brunswick in 2015. "We were having a VB can on the porch," Clark recalls. "And Jack said, 'I've got this crazy idea…'" The idea was specifically inspired by the Warumpi Band and Midnight Oil's famous 1986 Blackfella/Whitefella tour, where the bands hauled gear thousands of kilometres to play in places outside typical touring routes. "Guts was about taking live music to remote parts of the country that are starved of it and starved of opportunities," Clark says. That framing didn't last. Somewhere between the first few tours and now, 10 years in, the purpose sharpened. "I think we found the special sauce," Clark says. "We found the beauty in playing out in remote communities." Their initial goal of bringing live music to people in areas that don't get much of it may have been noble, but in hindsight it was maybe slightly off base. There's a persistent idea, Donnelly says, that remote communities are sparse, silent blank spaces. "I think there's this idea that we're heading out to communities that have nothing," she says. "And it's just not the case." "We arrive and we're immediately connecting with musicians. With a rich music community that already exists here." Melbourne musician Ullah, who is performing alongside Donnelly, nods. "Some of them have amazing songs about their community, specific to their community," she says. In Beswick, 90 minutes' drive south of Katherine, you can hear it before you see it. Somewhere beyond the Djilpin Arts Centre where tonight's gig will take place, a band rehearses. Parsons and a few other members of the tour wander off to find them and invite them to play tonight's show. They're the Wugularr Drifters — a cross-community group with members from Beswick and Barunga. Their set is one of quiet confidence, a tight rhythm section and a compelling frontman holding it all down without any pomp. Their guitarist, who hides as far on the side of the stage as he physically can, shreds lead breaks and solos like a virtuoso. "It's really good to have bands here," says Esther Bulumbara, a traditional owner in the community. "The kids are really enjoying it." She gestures toward the crowd — clusters of children darting about in front of the stage, half-watching, mainly playing. "It's a couple of boys from here and a couple from Barunga too, all mixed together," she says of the Drifters. "That's really good." In Bulman Weemol, two neighbouring communities three hours' drive north of Beswick, the connection to music is even more explicit. Through the local school, kids are writing their own songs, often in the severely threatened Dalabon and Rembarrnga languages. "They're writing songs based on Dreamtime stories, or whatever they want really," says learning-on-country coordinator Susie Stockwell. "And it's often in language, which is really important." "We're trying to bring those languages back into the community and keep them strong." On one night at the Weemol basketball courts, under a breathtaking carpet of stars, local man Euen Martin steps forward to sing us a song in Dalabon. "There was a fella there trying to preserve one of those languages," Parsons later says of Martin's set. "Only six or so people spoke it. And he sang us songs in that language. I won't forget that." The lineage stretches back decades. Peter "Abba" Miller, founder of iconic Indigenous band Blekbala Mujik, can trace it through family, through radio signals reaching remote country, through country music and early rock records filtering into communities. "We never had television back then," he says. "Just listening to the music was awe-inspiring and that's what made us who we are." "Music written about the land, about travelling … people connected to that." The gift of the long road Touring in Australia is difficult at the best of times. Outside the capital cities, the distances blow out, even the most basic infrastructure starts to thin, and anything resembling a regular touring circuit disappears. "Australia is a hard place to tour because it's so big," Parsons says. "In the US, you're driving three or four hours between big cities," Clark adds. "Here, it's just vast. It's isolating." What that means, in practice, is fewer chances to see live music, and fewer visible pathways into making it. "You can't be what you can't see," Donnelly says. When the Docker River Band step on stage, that idea becomes tangible. The group — six quietly spoken men from the APY Lands — play what they call desert reggae, singing in Pitjantjatjara and English. Their beautiful, breezy songs are anchored by bassist Peter Bennett and drummer Dion Bell, a rhythm section so commanding they ought to be called the Sly and Robbie of Central Australia. "Music brings everyone together," says frontman Roy Jugadai. "We play desert reggae … we sing in Pitjantjatjara." They've travelled across the Territory with Guts, seeing new places, meeting other bands. Soon they will play a string of high-profile dates on the east coast. "We like when black and white get together," Roy says. "Respect each other and music." Out front, the kids watch the Docker River Band closely — the dancing becomes studying. They are seeing something possible: a version of themselves onstage. "When you see a band in front of you in your town, there's no substitute for that," Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever guitarist Fran Keaney says. "You can see it in the kids' eyes — they just light up." For bands coming from the city, the exchange runs just as deep. "We don't do enough of that in Australia," Keaney says. "Connecting with our First Nations people." Around camp, on punishingly long drives and as we assemble the makeshift performance spaces each afternoon, the learning happens gradually. Words in new languages and yarns about past touring experiences are shared across a bus aisle or sitting by a waterhole. But the most profound learning comes at the shows. Even for a band like Rolling Blackouts, who have played hundreds of dates across the world, this is new territory. "We've toured a lot," bassist Joe Russo says. "And every city kind of feels the same. This is completely different." "It's about learning, looking, listening, connecting." How it all works Out here, the mechanics of touring are lean and impressive. Guts runs on a solar-powered PA system — four panels are strapped to a truck, and the solar batteries recharge on the road. Set up is collaborative and casual; everyone has a role, no-one grumbles. "It shows the essence of this tour," says production manager Alex Pinte. "Everyone is involved." They call the core crew "the spine" — four men who drive, organise and solve problems, tasked with keeping the whole thing moving. "And every single day," Clark says, "we've faced some level of adversity." Flat tyres. Bogged trucks. Lost keys. Bus doors that stop working without warning. Nights where a clear sky turns into a downpour after midnight, sending everyone scrambling from soaking swags. But there's a mantra. "When it all comes together, we go, 'Up the spine!'" Clark says. The rhythm of the tour isn't neat, and plans shift constantly. When some useless hangers-on from the national broadcaster get a flat tyre on the basalt-ridden East Arnhem Road, the seven-hour drive to Gapuwiyak becomes untenable and the show there is cancelled. We hear the locals are gutted. We all are. But Guts is a "solutions-based enterprise" according to Parsons, and that gig is almost immediately replaced with an acoustic set on a basketball court in Weemol. For Donnelly, the effect of this utterly unique tour is hard to overstate. "This has probably ruined normal touring for me for the rest of my life," she laughs. On a typical tour, she says, you move between cities, playing to crowds in bars and venues that largely blur together. Here, no such structure exists. Generally you wake in a swag, eat breakfast by the road, drive for hours on bumpy corrugated highways and across treacherous river crossings, spend the afternoon talking with locals, and play where you can. "I think I've gained more from this than anyone's gained from me being here," she says. Ullah agrees. "I've gotten so much from the kids," she says. "They're some of the most confident children I've ever met." Connection is the game The concerts are stunning. World-class artists playing through a powerful PA, broad, untouched natural landscapes, and massive open skies serving as breathtaking backdrops. But long after the trucks are packed, the swags are rolled, and the visitors have left community, the impact of these visits resonates. "There's such a role for this sort of a tour, not only for the bands to bring something to the communities, but to learn something themselves," Keaney says. "Further to that, for rural and remote bands to be able to venture out and meet bands from the cities and to connect with communities all around the state." It doesn't stop there. Years of Guts tours prompted the creation of the Bush Music Fund, a registered charity that provides long-term financial and operational support to First Nations musicians from remote Australia. While the organisation is only a couple of years old, its origins stem way back to the early days of Guts, after dates with the Eastern Arrernte Band in their home Ltyentye Apurte. "It was the first community where we ever put a show on," Parsons says. The band was brilliant, and when he learned that they'd never played a gig in Alice Springs — just an hour down the road — Parsons was struck by the disconnect in opportunities between bands from the city and those in remote regions. The band's founder Donovan Mulladad took him aside, and soon the purpose of this entire ambitious ordeal became clear. "He said, 'It's really nice that you come out here, and it is really important. It's great for the young crew and it's great for us and things like that. But we need opportunities everywhere else'," Parsons recalls. So far, Bush Music Fund's support has allowed artists like Ripple Effect Band, Mulga Bore Hard Rock and James Range Band to further their careers through tours and albums that have brought their music to new audiences around the country. "We were constantly thinking, 'How can we develop something that is meaningful and long term and not a flash in the pan? Something that can make a significant difference and help these bands connect and be heard, help these songs be heard'," Parsons says. "We work with bands for at least two years. It's artist-led: they design a program based on what they're hoping to achieve, and we just get to work and try and connect up the industry and bring everyone together." That's what they do best. The Guts team are technically in the game of logistics, production, promotion and entertainment; a week on the road with them proves they really excel in the game of connection. The relationships they develop with community leaders, rangers, traditional owners, and local schools mean we're always welcome when the big Guts bus rolls into town. Their strong connections with corporate brands, government bodies and music fans around the country help fund their work and keep that big bus on the road. Guts might feature far more flat tyres, cancelled gigs and cheap sausages than your regular tour, but anyone who's been touched by it as a participant or spectator will tell you it also has far more purpose. Decades on from when Blekbala Mujik founder Peter Miller first started playing music, he remains struck by the effect live music can have on young people. "I never thought that something like this was going to happen out here in the middle of Arnhem Land," he says. "And that music is just playing so vividly to the imagination of all these little kids that are here tonight." Back in Beswick, Rolling Blackouts have finished their set; the Docker River Band are up next. Those kids who'd swarmed the drum kit settle quickly. When the band starts, they wander to the front of the stage, their eyes widen as they absorb every note, every movement. These visiting musicians might speak a different language, but they feel far more like them than the stars on their phones and TVs who seem a million miles away. Earlier in the night, bashing the drums had felt like a novelty. As they watch these men on stage, some of them might now see it as their future. You can support the Bush Music Fund and Guts Touring by buying a t-shirt via the triple j Merch Store.