Stay Gold Battle Of The Bands - Heat 6

Our final regular heat for the Stay Gold Battle Of The Bands is upon us already!

Our Final Regular heat for the Stay Gold Battle of the Bands of 2026 is upon us! We have a great lineup including ALTAV, XANDRI, Earth Cadet, Finn Kirby + Babchia

XANDRI

From Naarm (Melbourne, Australia), XANDRI is your next pop Princess.

At just 21, the queer singer-songwriter is already carving out a reputation for transforming raw, personal experiences into songs that connect deeply with listeners. Having left home young and defied expectations, their music reflects both the weight of loss and the strength of self-determination, always anchored by honest, vulnerable lyricism.

ALTAV

AltaV are a grungy, alt-rock band based in Melbourne

EARTH CADET

Earth Cadet is an Australian Alt-Rock act out of Bendigo/Djaara Victoria. The trio blend grunge, shoegaze, post-hardcore and emo into a potent blend of killer rock songs, filled with anthemic hooks and jagged riffs. Their 2025 debut album EXIT WOUNDS has drawn rave reviews, radio play and international playlist spots. Fresh off their DIY national tour their energetic live shows are growing them a fervent following. Quickly racking up over 70,000 streams on Spotify - their single ‘Meteors’ off 2024 EP ‘Tales From The End’ made its way onto Spotify's prestigious All New Rock playlist in June 2024, picked as one of Spotify's favourite 40 rock tracks released in the world that week. Their recently finished October DIY national tour in support of EXIT WOUNDS packed out rooms in Canberra, Wollongong, Sydney, Geelong, Melbourne and Bendigo.

FINN KIRBY

finn kirby wants to be your friend. finn kirby’s unstoppable ability to create catchy indie rock earworms to jump around to is rivalled only by their free, fun and infectious stage presence. finn kirby has a secret recipe to the best carbonara you've ever tasted and they will only share it on stage with their lovely audience. finn kirby have been described as "ball park music if they were angry sometimes", "radiohead if they were theatre kids" and "boygenius but not as good". finn kirby wants to play mario kart with you. finn kirby is a fresh face just starting out in the melbourne music scene, with a phenomenally original outlook on indie rock: playful but deliberate lyrics, carefully arranged guitar parts and vocal harmonies blending together to be belted out into the world with an overwhelming amount of love by four very silly dudes. finn kirby has a diehard core following of fans who turn up to all their gigs with full faith that they're about to have a rockin' wonderful night. finn kirby were once stranded at sea and survived on cans of baked beans and seaweed. finn kirby loves you.

BABCHIA

babchia (“BAHB-cha”) 

is made up of 5 musicians hailing from a variety of influences; together we're a loud alternative rock, grunge outfit, performing raw, riff driven tunes. we write, record and produce all our own work here in narrm and have since we started as a band in 2025. our debut single ‘porcelain’ and its subsequent performances are a testament to the high energy, evocative and analog production we have to offer. we have so much more to give with more original work on the way.