Pitchfork

It spans three weeks, about as many performing arts genres as you can muster, and all kinds of venues in the most populous city in Australia. And as you might imagine, the lineup for the Sydney Festival-- going down all over Sydney, Australia January 10-31, 2009-- is quite a thing to behold. Santogold, Bon Iver, Bill Callahan, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, the Matthew Herbert Big Band, the Bug and Warrior Queen, St. Vincent, Juana Molina, Z-Trip, A-Trak, Rhythm & Sound, Daedelus, Grace Jones, Four Tet, Throwing Muses and a Kristin Hersh spoken word solo performance, Metronomy, Buraka Som Sistema, Pivot, Holy Ghost!, Idjut Boys, Camille, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová as well as Hansard's own Frames, the Cinematic Orchestra, and about a million others will hit the Harbour City for the big party. Um, you'll have to look up exactly when and where they're playing yourself.

Sydney Fest is so darn huge that, as we mentioned, it actually contains an entire All Tomorrow's Parties festival inside of it. That would be the Cockatoo Island portion of the Nick Cave/Bad Seeds-curated ATP Australia, which takes place January 17-18 at the Sydney Harbour locale. In addition to the killer lineup we mentioned early last month, Nick and ATP have added Bill Callahan, Dirty Three performing Ocean Songs, Dead Meadow, the Reels, Psarandonis, the Holy Sea, Passenger of Shit, Small Knives, and Hunter Dienna to the mix.

And with all that, somehow, even three weeks doesn't seem like enough.