Get ready to feel the love this Valentine’s Day with Loin Groin

It might not be the most conventional way to spend cupid's day for the lovers but you'll be in for a treat!

Love is in the air and it’s being celebrated by a shortstack of bands down at Geelong’s Barwon Club Hotel. LoveFest 2026 is loading in for the lovers and it’s all topped by reunited reggae pub rock riots, Loin Groin. Perhaps not a name that automatically screams romance, Loin Groin are ready to have crowds skanking their way through the Hallmark Holiday with their ska sounds and electric energy.

Loin Groin have been a staple of the live music scene, continuing to uphold the traditions of ska music, a genre synonymous with fast feet, swinging arms, and pure joy for the jump. With eight members bouncing off of each other, their sets are always animalistic and a good time all round.

To get you appropriately hyped, trumpet player, Julian Millie, from Loin Groin sits down to discuss the new era of the band, pub culture, gambling, and going into Damage Control.

LoveFest 2026

When: Saturday 14 February

Where: Barwon Club Hotel Geelong

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Loin Groin has been playing frequently since getting back together in 2019. Is the current recipe any different?
No, it is the same brew. We play ska music that is very influenced by Aussie pub-rock.

What version of pub rock do you fit into? The genre has become so vast!
For us the classic pub-rock was played by bands like Dragon, Chisels, Joe-Joe Zep and the Falcons,
Australian Crawl and that generation of bands. Men at Work. In fact, a lot of their songs had a
skanky reggae feel to them. We aim for that, but there are more ska rhythms in our music than
those bands. Also, we try to bring out the humour that these bands generated.

So, you play covers of songs from these bands?
It is more a case of wanting to sound like them rather than copy their songs. The only cover in our
set now is Rose Tattoo’s ‘One of the Boys’. We have about six Loin Groin classics from the past that we
absolutely have to play every gig or else our audience would mutiny, and the rest is just rotation of
other Loin Groin nuggets.

From listening to your stuff on Spotify, my impression is that Loin Groin loves gambling. Am I on the money there?
No, definitely not true. It is true that we play lots of songs about people gambling (‘Pub Tab’, ‘My
Team Plays on Friday’, ‘Person of Rectitude’ etc), but this is because we like to caricature the people
and places we see around us. Drinking and gambling are weird things that people do in Melbourne
now, and our environment is really built around these activities. Our audience recognises these
things, so they become the main topics at most Loin Groin gigs. People identify with it and feel at
home. They laugh…but I don’t think you will find many Loin Groin members at the Pub TAB.

So the DNA of Loin Groin is very much oriented to pub culture. Why do you find that a place of comfort?
Oh yeah. It’s a special thing when a couple of hundred people who don’t know each other come
together in a room to drink and listen in harmony. There’s so much conflict in the world right now,
so it’s great that high standards of civility and respect still prevail in pub rock! [laughs] The challenge
for us is to capture people’s total attention, that is our goal, and make them forget about the other
stuff in their lives, and just totally make them concentrate on our songs…which are all about drinking and gambling…[laughs]

Let’s talk ‘Pub TAB’. The legendary song just won an award in 3AW. How do you feel about that win?
That was a laugh. 3AW ran a list of the 20 best songs that you will never hear on 3AW…serious…’Pub
Tab’ made the list. Ironically, they played some of the song on air and had some laughs about it. So
3AW played a song that you will never hear on 3AW. Great!

Why would it not be played on 3AW? It’s not that controversial!
Ah, some of our songs are jokey but also kind of serious. Gambling has changed Victoria, so even all
these fun songs about the TAB and the trots have a serious side to them. Every day it seems like
someone has to go into damage control after they come a cropper because of their gambling debts.

Which brings us to your new record? What can you divulge?
Yes, to be released in April. It will be called Damage Control. It consists of the eight tracks that we
have added to our set since we got back together. It’s exciting for us. We are also pumped to be
coming back to Geelong after a very long time!

Loin Groin plays at the Barwon Club Hotel on Saturday 14 February for Valentines LoveFest. You won’t want to miss this stand out set in a place all about pub culture! The event also sees sets from Hybernators, Sloppy Jallopies, Repo Band, G-String Nicotine, Free Willie Lopez, and Jasmin Adria,
plus Reggae Interstial DJ will keep the beats moving throughout the night.

Grab your tickets here.