Spiderbait ready to rock and headline Wanderer Festival at Pambula Beach over a music-filled October long weekend

Spiderbait, who are well known for their 2004 cover of Lead Belly's 1930s song "Black Betty" which reached number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and received 2x Platinum certification, are headlining the Wanderer Festival, taking place from September 29 to October 1 on the far south coast.

Spiderbait's Mark "Kram" Maher said he is grateful and proud for the opportunity to perform and create music for decades, alongside his friends Janet and Whitt, as their career nears 35 years, a notch he described as the The Bad Seeds and Midnight Oil phase.

"We can't wait to do it, we've been wanting to do this show for a while and we are stoked we've been asked to play," Kram said.

"It's great that [Simon Daly's] put a great festival together down the south coast, which is somewhere that has been crying out for a music festival for a long time.

"So it's really great that Wanderer's happening, and hopefully it'll be around for many years to come."

Kram said the band had often travelled through Eden and Merimbula on journeys north to Bateman's Bay when Spiderbait were based out of Melbourne, even recalling how some of the towns they'd seen were tragically lost during the Black Summer fires.

"It must have been so incredibly hard for the community down there, and I am sure a lot of people are still reeling from that, so hopefully a festival like this can bring a bit of good times to the locals, give them some entertainment," he said.

"I grew up with bushfires being a pretty normal thing, but to have a catastrophic fire rating in springtime, I hope everyone down there is alright."

On Saturday, September 30, Spiderbait will be performing on the main stage from 9.20pm to 10.30pm, and before they approach the stage, Kram said they would do their pre-gig routine.

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"In the band room you'd see three people talking about the town and having a cup of tea," he said.

Kram described the moment an artist crosses the invisible line between side of stage and on the stage, and how the erupting audience helps to ignite the set.

"I can't tell what it's like being in the audience, but for me it's really euphoric, like I get a heightened sense of reality of being alive while performing, especially big shows like this. I'd like to think that rubs off on the audience.

"As soon as I walk on stage it's going to be catastrophic happiness, it's going to be emotional, creating something supercharged. It's aggressive but not aggression, it's supercharged euphoria," Kram said with a laugh.

Spiderbait wasn't born out of world conquering ambition, it was created out of living in the risk, madness and absurdity that comes from being an artist, and built out of fun and a love for music.

"Playing music is a great emotional connection not just with yourself but other people, I think it's good for you, and if other people like what you're doing, even better."

Tickets are available at Wanderer.com.au

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