Local Gold showcases the best and latest original music acts in Canberra.

Hosted by lovable local rockstar, Pete Lyon, the three part show opens with a proven emerging talent and progresses to a headline set from a higher profile established favourite. Most acts are local, but it’s pretty Canberra to welcome visitors too, right.

Local Gold is intimate, fun and entertaining, with an emphasis on authentic artistic expression in original contemporary songwriting. So, if you love hearing local talent, new and old, raw or polished, make this a recurring appointment in your calendar!

Appearing Monday March 30th, 2026: The Silvertop String Band, Tom Woodward and Mini Trace.

The Silvertop String Band are a five-piece bluegrass and old-time band hailing from the nation’s capital deep in the heart of the Brindabellas. They perform high lonesome favourites and hidden gems gathered around a single mic, sprinkling something new into old-time and sowing a little wallaby grass into the bluegrass turf.

Tom Woodward is arguably Canberra’s most prolific songwriter, a hard-seasoned busker, a long distance runner, a rambling man… a poet philosopher, a tormented soul, a dreamer… enigmatic, melancholic genius…. his finger-picking an otherworldly product of 25 years ceaseless, obsessive bio-mechanical programming, his clinking clanking meccano hands propelling his songs on their careering, careening path through nutrient-rich word salads, bleak and pitiless, yet somehow comforting. His voice an authentically tortured Dylanesque yowl and whine – full of inner torment and yearning. And with all that, finally, an entertaining and self-deprecatingly humorous performer, personable and engaging – you’ll want to take him home with you despite your better instincts.

 

Mini Trace are a duo subset of their main band, The Trace. With one guitar and two voices, with great harmonies and clever lyrics, they don’t seem to require a band. But check them out here or live around town with band and make up your own mind.