Joan Jett’s In

Joan Jett will return to Australia for the first time since 1995 to headline the four-day Falls Festival at Lorne from December 28. It is not known at this stage whether Jett will be playing any sideshows in capital cities.

In the recent biopic based on the rise to fame of Joan Jett’s seminal 1970’s punk rock troupe ‘The Runaways’, former child star Dakota Fanning portrays lead singer Cherie Currie as an underage minx lost in a haze of drugs, booze and sexual abandon. Jett, played by Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame, is her equally decadent but somewhat wiser sidekick. In the 70’s, at a time when American music was dominated by males, The Runaways were an all-girl breath of fresh air.

Since that trailblazing era, Jett has forged a reputation as one of the hardest working American songwriters of her generation. Huge hits like I Love Rock and Roll, Crimson and Clover and Cherry Bomb all feature on the Greatest Hits album released this year and have made her a defining figure in the punk-rock canon. Once described as the “Godmother of Punk” – her songs have been used in shows such as Freaks and Geeks as well as movies like Detroit Rock City and Juno.

“I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation” Joan Jett insists on her 1980 hit Bad Reputation. Even if she doesn’t give a damn, fans around Australia certainly will as she teams up with her faithful band The Blackhearts and unleashes a myriad of fist pumping punk-rock anthems on her devoted audiences.

Concert-goers can also look forward to seeing ground-breaking hip-hop act Public Enemy perform its seminal 1990 album, Fear of a Black Planet, in its entirety

Other acts confirmed for the festival, which tag-teams with the Marion Bay festival in Tasmania for three days from December 29, include major American acts Interpol, The National, Cold War Kids, The Rapture and Sleigh Bells; and from the UK, Klaxons, sibling outfit Kitty, Daisy and Lewis, and dance-comedy act the Cuban Brothers.

Among the local attractions are perennial festival favourites The Living End, Paul Kelly and Dan Sultan. Sweet-voiced Sally Seltmann (aka New Buffalo), psychedelic rockers Tame Impala and brother-sister act Angus and Julia Stone are on the bill.