We caught up with Lime Cordiale's Oli Leimbach for Wine Machine!
Image: Tim Swallow.
Wine Machine is back for another year! The beloved music festival is set to return to the east coast this month, with a lineup full of superb Australian talent. We caught up with Lime Cordiale's Oli Leimbach to chat about the tour, the importance of live music, their 2023 plans and so much more!
This weekend, Wine Machine will the Hunter Valley/Wonnarua Country for a packed day of live music and good vibes, before heading to Canberra/Ngunnawal Country on March 25 and Yarra Valley/Wurundjeri Country on April 1. Joining Lime Cordiale on all three dates is Hot Dub Time Machine, who will make his return to the Wine Machine stage, Bliss N Eso, Northeast Party House, KLP and Grentperez. Additionally, Vera Blue will performing in Canberra/Ngunnawal Country and Yarra Valley/Wurundjeri Country. The spectacular Poof Doof Drag Jamboree will also be serving up a stack of fierce drag madness across the tour.
Lime Cordiale are also set to hit the road on their Fantastical Country Club Experience tour. The run of shows will begin on March 17 in Dee Why / Gayamaygal & Garigal Country, before heading to Wollongong / Dharawal Country, Albury / Wiradjuri Country, Frankston / Bunurong Country, the Sunshine Coast / Kabi Kabi & Jinibara Country and Port Macquarie / Birpai Country, before it's finale on April 15 in Rooty Hill / Darug Country. Aleksiah is set to join each stop of the tour, with Bella Amor and Coterie appearing at select dates.
Tickets are on sale now!
You kicked off the Wine Machine tour in Perth at the end of last year by skydiving into the festival. How are you going to top that on the East Coast run? The bar is set pretty high now.
Oh man. Yeah, the skydive was, I mean I was stoked on the skydive. I got asked to do the skydive thinking that everyone, you know, Wine Machine had said like 'San Cisco look like they're doing it. The other guy's in your band are keen [laughs], Client Liaison are thinking about it.' I was like, 'oh, this will be fun, you know, big gang skydive.' I rocked up and I was the only one there. Me and the competition winners and a couple of instructors and I was like, 'alright, so [laughs] everyone else has bailed. I thought it was heaps of fun. But yeah, it's a pretty, pretty extreme way to go. And in terms of Hunter Valley, I don't know, I think maybe just roll in on the old quiet wine bus. The Hunter Valley tour bus
I back that. It's pretty epic way [laughs]
Beautiful, chill. Yeah.
And fits the theme. Wine Machine, wine bus. It's perfect.
[Laughs] There we go.
Wine Machine is such an awesome festival. It's got a completely local lineup. What do you think sets it apart from other touring festivals within Australia?
The Australian lineups are kind of a big thing, you know? We saw a lot of that with international acts not being able to come into Australia. It sort of, I think, put a lot more confidence in lineups that are purely Australian. Which is kind of good to see, you know? You can fill a pretty solid lineup with just Australian Acts. We do have a love for Australian music. I think a lot of the festivals maybe think that they need that international act. I mean, we sort of do because it makes it exciting and all that. But yeah, there's something that makes you proud about seeing a all Aussie liner.
Yeah, it's so great and so nice to celebrate and party with our incredible local artists. What's been your fondest memory from the Wine Machine tour? You've taken to the stage in a few cities over the past few months.
Perth, Adelaide, Tassie. We've done a few. Just outside of Canberra. I love regional festivals, so I kind of love going to, like Tassie was heaps of fun because we just don't get down there enough. It feels like all of Tasmania is there and it's just, I don't know, there's something just so relaxing. You feel like you're on holiday just straight away when you're there. And it was like their only day of like a 35 degree heat day, which is pretty unusual for Tassie. I mean, they're all bloody, it's just, it's a good crew. We didn't know the San Cisco guys before this festival, so it's kind of cool getting to know these sorts of people. Client Liaison as well, they're always like absolutely hilarious. They don't laugh, so they just like [laughs], you don't know whether they're joking. Most of the time they just constantly, they like talk to you and then they're just like straight faced and like, I'm so confused whether you're a dick or like the funniest person in the world [laughs].
[Laughs] Love it. How important do you think festivals like Wine Machine are culturally and socially in terms of creating shared experiences amongst music lovers?
It sounds pretty cliche, but I think festivals are a big part of just our culture in general. I think you need to have these big events where everyone's like singing and dancing together. I think back on, I don't know, Irish culture or English culture, or just even like when things were a bit more primal or something and we are all, you know, I think singing ingrained in us. So I mean, it's pretty hard to tell politicians that all the time, you know? We need to be singing and dancing to be able to get on. It sounds pretty hippy.
It's true though.
Yeah. I think it is important. I think there's something to be said about doing something as a collective. And also these regional festivals I think are opening people up to these regional areas, which are awesome. Making a little road trip out of it if you're not from close by. You can stop at the local bakery. People start realising that country town bakeries is where the best part are at.
Exactly, and then it makes them want to keep going back in the future as well and and brings some economic growth to regional areas. So it is super special like that.
Totally, yeah. Get get familiar with it.
You guys never seem to stop touring, especially since your sophomore album dropped. Which arrived in the middle of COVID, but I feel like, even then, you guys made it work and literally have just been on the road since then. How do you keep touring and playing live exciting and fun when it is quite a repetitious cycle?
You know, it's funny. We've actually got like eight weeks off with no shows at the moment which is so much for us. I feel like a week off and people are forgetting their parts and things. But yeah, we do tend to sort of like create a live set, rehearse the hell out of it, try and make it quite different, and then sort of go on the road for it. And it does progress over the course of the tour. So I think maybe if you're seeing a show towards the end of one of our big runs, it can get weirder because we're almost like trying to create a bit of adrenaline for ourselves. The start of the tour we're all just like, 'okay, make sure that we are getting everything right. There's bits to remember.' And then by the time you've played that show like 50 times, I don't know, you feel like getting naked on stage or something just to kind of give you a bit of a rush. I think that's what keeps it refreshing, you're constantly trying to find ways of keeping it fresh yourself For sure. It's almost like the intricacies of some of these parts just get really in tune. I think when you're first playing a bunch of new stuff, you sort of play the songs and it sounds fine like a record, but then, I don't know, our drummer might one night do like a certain fill halfway through the song and then the next night you wanna sort of like catch him on that feel and like be in tune with that. So you're sort of like playing these games with each other, these like unspoken little games on stage which, you know, can make you laugh. And then things just sort of develop. But to be honest, I think we played 110 shows last year, but I think by the end we were like, 'all right, we need to change things up, release a new single or something like that just to give us us a new buzz.
Speaking of a new single, obviously you guys dropped a few tracks last year, but what's on the horizon 2023?
So the point of this sort of like eight weeks off is to completely finish our album. So looks like we've finished that last week. Just finished tracking everything and it's semi-mixed. SIt's just about getting that completely ticked off really and kind of deciding what's next. We go to the pub with our manager, and actually Jack Shepherd as well was there who does our music videos and stuff because I feel like he's got good points on our aesthetic or work and a whatever should come next. So yeah, we just sat down, had little pub lunch and just sort of talked about what we thought we should do next and none of us really agreed [laughs]. So it's sort of like back to the drawing board. But I think we're at a place now, I mean since that meeting, I think we kind of know what's going. But we're gonna have a bunch of singles this year and the album dropping.
WINE MACHINE NATIONAL TOUR
HOT DUB TIME MACHINE
LIME CORDIALE | BLISS N ESO
VERA BLUE* | NORTHEAST PARTY HOUSE
KLP | GRENTPEREZ
+ MANY MORE
And your sommeliers:
THE POOF DOOF DRAG JAMBOREE
* Excl. NSW
HUNTER VALLEY, NSW
Saturday 18 March 2023
Dalwood Estate
Hunter Valley, Wonnarua Country, NSW
CANBERRA, ACT
Saturday 25 March 2023
Commonwealth Park
Canberra, Ngunnawal Country, ACT
YARRA VALLEY, VIC
Saturday 1 April 2023
Rochford Wines
Wurundjeri Country, VIC
LIME CORDIALE 'FANTASTICAL COUNTRY CLUB EXPERIENCE' TOUR
Fri 17 Mar - Dee Why RSL, Dee Why / Gayamaygal & Garigal Country *
Sun 19 Mar - Dee Why RSL, Dee Why / Gayamaygal & Garigal Country (AA) *
Fri 24 Mar – Waves, Wollongong / Dharawal Country *
Fri 31 Mar – Beer Deluxe, Albury / Wiradjuri Country *
Sun 2 Apr – The Pier, Frankston / Bunurong Country ^
Sat 8 Apr – Venue 114, Sunshine Coast / Kabi Kabi & Jinibara Country (AA)
Sun 9 Apr – Panthers, Port Macquarie / Birpai Country ^
Sat 15 Apr – The Coliseum, Rooty Hill / Darug Country ^
Aleksiah opens all shows
*Bella Amor – main support
^Coterie – main support
Comments