Paddy's Wombat Bush Band

Paddys Wombat Bush Band are a highly experienced group of musicians who’ve been providing entertainment to the Australian public for over 30 years. The line-up has changed over the years, but the core members and principles of what we provide remain the same.

Our number one rule as a band is for the crowd to enjoy themselves… after all, that’s what we believe it’s all about. So if people are happy to sit and listen to our songs, or join in when we teach and call a bush dance, we don’t really care as long as they go away after the event feeling better for being there.

Although we use acoustic guitars, bass, fiddle, larger phone, stomp box, etc. we have an emphasis on being able to be heard properly and at exactly the right levels, especially when teaching and calling dances. So for this reason we’re really fortunate enough to have our own PA technician who sets up and manages the sound from out the front. This is an extremely important aspect of an evening to make certain the music matches the event and the crowd.   

We’ve performed at hundreds and hundreds of different venues right around Victoria and whether it’s on the back of a truck in the middle of bush running power from a generator, or in school auditorium in the middle of Melbourne, or in a tent at the foot of the Grampians, or on board an ocean liner that’s berthed at Station Pier, or raising funds to help a bush fire relief organisation, or at a wedding in the back blocks of Gippsland… we don’t mind, as long as we all have fun together. It certainly was an extremely interesting experience teaching and calling Australian Bush Dancing to a totally German speaking audience on board their around the world adventure…. imagine the memories they have of this great land of ours. The other notable memory was doing two drought relief bush dances in the Mallee and being rained out of our tents on the last night..!

Bush Dancing is a terrific Australian way to bring people together where they might not otherwise get to interact. Some of the progressive dances like the Barn Dance or the Circassian Circle make sure that you get to meet others through the dance. And dances that have the longways sets of couples down the dance floor ensure you get a great opportunity to watch on and clap along before taking your turn. We don’t mind if the dancing’s not done correctly, it’s all about having fun..!  

Of course there’s many events where there’s little or no dancing, and we’ve played at many a festival, fete or St Patrick’s Day simply providing Australian, Irish, Celtic music as well as our own original songs…. of course St Pat’s day sees us stick with the Irish flavour.

If you’re after an event where you’d like your guests to interact and would like to promote traditional Australian bush dancing, or simply have us provide entertainment of any flavour mentioned above, then we’d love to talk with you about it. We love to tailor events to suit the requirement.