On Saturday, the 27th of November, FLOW Festival returned for an incredible day of music and arts. With a slew of homegrown performances from Mildlife, Emma Donovan and Trad Ukiyo and others, located at the Footscray Community Arts. Hazy Days Music would like to thank This Much Talent Australia and FLOW Festival for having us there on the day and Brandon from Trad Ukiyo for taking the time out to have a chat about their performance.

 Hey Brandon, thank you so much for taking the time out for a chat. Could you share a little bit about the band? How did you get started and what’s the band been up to?

We've been playing together since the end of 2018 and started performing as Trad Ukiyo not long before COVID hit, so it's been a bit of a battle to build/create consistent momentum in between all of Melbourne's Lockdowns. We released our debut single On Hold back in 2020 and recently went into the studio and recorded four more songs, which will be on our upcoming EP. We had a great time in the studio, and the EP shouldn't be far off.

You played an incredible set at Flow Festival! What was your experience like on the day? How fun was it to be back on stage and how was your set?

On behalf of all of the band, I think it was a well organised day and really captured what the whole day was about - relating to indigenous culture, touching on the qualities of the entire festival was shown from the very start and just flowed from there (no pun intended haha). I think it was a great first taste of live entertainment after a long time. It was just an excellent experience to be around different people and different bands in a very diverse and multicultural community. 

It was pretty nerve-racking being onstage for the first time after a long time. It was definitely a great taste of live music and performing. It was really exciting for myself and the band, being able to get such an opportunity like this, we were really grateful for that. 

I think we played a 45-minute set, around eight songs. We started off with a cover, just to get our hands and vocals warmed up. By the time we hopped off the stage, it felt like we'd been up there for five minutes. We were having so much fun, and the time went by so quickly. The whole experience was incredible. The audience was very supportive, sound engineers were great, even seeing all the other bands was really heartwarming, so many amazing artists were performing. As Melbournians, we haven't seen anything like this in such a long time; it was really heartwarming for all of us in the band.

A week or two out from the festival it looked like it was going to get cancelled/postponed due to another lockdown. How was the band's preparation for the fest with the possible cancellation in the back of the mind?

Leading up to the festival, we felt like we were pretty sketchy. We played a gig at Colour Club the week before, and we all felt like that wasn't the best gig we've played, but a lot of the crowd said we sounded really tight and put on a great show, so that gave us a big boost leading into the fest.

Rehearsing over lockdown was hard. We were all very busy working our day jobs, but it's a lot better now out of lockdown. None of us work’s shift work these days, so we can rehearse in the afternoons once we clock off. 

It was definitely challenging not knowing whether this festival would happen or not or end up another event that gets postponed. A week or two out, it really looked like it could go either way. 

It must be nice playing live again. With everyone online so much more over COVID than ever before, have you noticed a difference with the bands social media in and out of lockdown?

The great thing about spending so much time online is we are so much better at communicating now than ever before. I've noticed that with our social media presence before and after shows. After playing, we get so much more traction: more follows, mentions, shoutouts on stories, which is great. I think being able to combine both leads to a band's success, so now that we are finally able to perform again, it puts us in a really good position. Coming out of lockdown is like a restart for the whole music industry and lets us get back into the groove of things.

To play a festival of this size, so early, for Trad Ukiyo is such an incredible opportunity. How did this come about?

Pretty much, FLOW Fest just hit us up to play the festival. They reached out to us through our contact at Vic Uni. We all studied a Bachelor of Music there, and that's where we all met each other and became friends. One of the perks of studying at Vic uni is they have an excellent agency that looks out for your band, book you gigs/keep an eye out for opportunities, all that stuff. The VU agency reached out to our lead singer Gabby with this incredible opportunity, and we were all so keen to play. We've been dying to play live music again and jumped at this chance to play a festival like Flow.

What's planned for 2022? Can we catch you playing anywhere soon? Is there anything you’d like to add before we wrap up?

We are supporting Meredith Louise at Kindred Bandroom on Feb 17th - Tickets here. 

For the EP, we might add in a few more vocal layers and more synths, then send it off to get mixed and mastered. 

I'd just like to say we are so grateful for the opportunity that FLOW Festival gave us and the opportunity to play live music again. It was the perfect way to kick start live music again, and we were just so grateful to be a part of that.

Follow Trad Ukiyo on Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.

Posted on the 2nd of February, by Jake Taylor

We acknowledge the people of the Kulin Nation as the rightful and traditional owners of the land and where FLOW Festival takes place. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.