Spend your Valentine’s Day at Perth Festival’s Clam Jam

Bypass the dinner and date combination this Valentine’s (or Galentine’s) Day and head down to Perth Festival’s Chevron Gardens for Abbe May’s Clam Jam.

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What: Abbe May + Clam Jam at Perth Festival

When: Wednesday 14 February, 8pm

Where: Chevron Gardens, Elizabeth Quay

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Putting an end to ‘sausage fests’

Having just released her fifth studio album Fruit, WA musician and femme fatale Abbe May is kickstarting her national tour with a bang. Lighting up Perth Festival’s stunning Chevron Gardens at Elizabeth Quay, Clam Jam is a mini-festival celebrating women in music; the stellar line-up includes Sex Panther, Thelma Plum and Carla Geneve.

“I was on tour in 2016 and I was thinking about how many line-ups are just big ol’ sausage fests,” says Abbe on the reasoning behind her mini-festival and its facetious name. “I thought the opposite would be a ‘Clam Jam’. So I made it happen.

“One of my favourite parts of our Clam Jams is that there is never any doubt that these artists deserve to be heard and seen. We just need to level up the playing field more; there really is no excuse to not celebrate them.”

An album worth the wait

Fruit may have only been released two weeks ago, but it’s already earned accolades thanks to its honesty and vulnerability. “I like to experiment with different sounds, instruments and collaborators,” says Abbe on the album’s five-year creation process. “I like to let the work evolve without trying to control it.”

An album highlight is ‘Seventeen’, which doubles as the song Abbe is most proud of. “I wrote it as a letter for my niece so that she can know how much I love her and am grateful for her existence. Sometimes I think of my own mortality and I want my niece and nephews to never forget that I love them, and that they can trust me to protect them. In my eventual absence, they will have the songs I write to remind them.”

As for what Abbe was like as a 17-year-old,? “I was a stoner. I had no idea who I was. I over-plucked my eyebrows... a lot. I used to watch Ally McBeal and my bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Shirley Manson… I still love Garbage.”

Have a Valentine’s Day to remember and grab your Clam Jam tickets here.