The Eighty-Six festival: why the Melbourne tram line that inspired Courtney Barnett is throwing a party

Woody McDonald, co-founder and artistic director of music festival The Eighty-Six, which takes place in venues along High Street in Northcote, Thornbury, Preston and Reservoir in Melbourne’s inner north from 23 to 31 October. The venues lie along the route of the 86 tram. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

For a public transport line, the 86 tram has a surprisingly prolific musical legacy. Courtney Barnett has sung of meeting a paramour along the route – which snakes its way from the edge of Melbourne’s CBD through the inner-city hubs of Fitzroy and Collingwood, all the way up to leafy Bundoora; and comedy musician the Bedroom Philosopher released an entire album, Songs from the 86 Tram, featuring the viral hipster-decimating hit Northcote (So Hungover).

This month, The Eighty-Six – a new music festival named for the tram line – takes over cultural venues along a select strip of the route dubbed “the Bonsoy belt”, namely the stretch of High Street that runs through the inner-north suburbs of Northcote, Thornbury, Preston and Reservoir.