Falls Festival Heading To Byron Bay, Vampire Weekend To Headline?

If you’re a north of the border resident with a hankering for a fine New Year’s Eve camping event, the good folks at Falls Festival are listening, expanding the brand and bringing the iconic Marion Bay and Lorne festival to Byron Bay for the 2013/2014 year, and they’ve dropped a big hint that Vampire Weekend will be in attendance.

Falls Byron will take place at North Byron Parklands, the new home of Splendour In The Grass, slightly later than its southern counterparts, kicking off on New Years Eve – so technically you could attend all three events if you really wanted to.

Of the move, festival founder Simon Daly says, “We’re really excited to be heading North and expanding this year, the Byron Bay location couldn’t be better suited to everything that has always encompassed Falls in Lorne and Marion Bay. Coastal and charming natural settings; a destination for our patrons to travel for.”

Byron Bay Mayor Simon Richardson actually revealed the news earlier today, telling ABC that he hopes the event will curb anti-social behaviour in the coastal town, much like it has in Victoria’s Lorne:

“Lorne used to go gangbusters with violence and by bringing this festival which again was a very chilled festival and laid back and giving people something to do. It’s transformed Lorne. So for Byron I think not only is it giving a great opportunity for residents of the area to see some great music but importantly it allows us to manage New Year’s Eve so we don’t have a repeat of what happened last year.”

There’s already a couple of hot picks for Falls attendees. Just yesterday, Grizzly Bear member Ed Droste revealed his band would be in Australia for New Years and The Roots also recently revealed they’ll be in Australia in time for the end of year festivities.

The big news is that, along with these two bands, Vampire Weekend are frontrunners to headline the festival now that Falls have revealed the promo videos for this year’s event. VW’s track Unbelievers from the just-released Modern Vampires of The City soundtracks the clip (below), and just like Jake Bugg‘s track on this year’s Splendour promo clip show it’s almost guaranteed that the band will be involved in Falls this year.

Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig told Faster Louder back in May that the band are “definitely planning on coming back to Australia” in the not-too-distant future. “I don’t know what we’ve totally confirmed yet, but it won’t be too long,” he said. Looks like we can just about say we’ll be getting two VW visits in one year, after the band visited for BDO and a single Sydney sideshow this year.

We’ll bring you more news on the 3-day camping festival as it comes to hand. Full dates and details below.

Falls Festival 2013/2014 lineup

!!! (Chk Chk Chk)
Asta
Big Scary
Bombino
Bonobo
The Cat Empire
Chet Faker
Crystal Fighters
Cyril Hahn
Flight Facilities
Gossling
Grizzly Bear
Hanni El Khatib
Hermitude
James Vincent Mcmorrow
London Grammar
MGMT
Neil Finn
Pond
The Preatures
The Roots
Rüfüs
Solange
Tom Odell
Vampire Weekend
Violent Femmes
White Denim
The Wombats