Leather-clad rocker Jon Stevens is right at home on the rolling red plains of Mundi in remote regional NSW.
"It's a special place to come back to," he said ahead of his headlining set on the closing night of the Mundi Mundi Bash on Saturday.
"These are one-off events and they're really special."
Stevens has been working his way around Australia with his crowd-pleasing The Noiseworks and INXS Collection show since May.
"I think this is show number 38 or 37," he told AAP on Saturday.
It's a gruelling schedule but one Stevens handles with ease these days.
"Gone are the days of drinking and drugging and all that stuff when you're young, you know what I mean?" he said.
"You go through that whole rock 'n' roll period but when you get older, you're able to condition yourself a lot better and pace yourself."
A longtime member of the Mundi Mundi and Big Red Bash performer family, Stevens flew into Mildura on Sunday and hit the road for the three-hour drive to Mundiville.
"It's a beautiful drive," he said.
"This whole area is iconic and this festival is iconic, along with the old Big Red Bash in Birdsville - the two greatest festivals in the country.
"Society is so caught up in just surviving in the cities and stuff, you know with iPhones and internet and all the bullshit we have to contend with every day.
"To actually get out and get your kids out to things like this is such an experience and obviously, with Australian music being supported in such a way by (festival founder) Greg Donovan and the crew - it's brilliant."
Stevens took the stage after John Butler made his Mundi Mundi debut.
Their headlining sets followed a rain-soaked lead-up to this year's event that forced organisers to turn away thousands of ticketholders because the site was too wet.
"Give it up for the amazing crew who battled through amazing adversity to put this on," Butler told the crowd on Saturday.
"Give it up to Greg (Donovan) and the whole family, and to all you people who stuck with us through all the changes."
First held in 2022, the Mundi Mundi Bash has cemented the remote regional NSW town of Broken Hill as a bucket-list destination for music fans.
Home to 17,000 people, the mining town almost doubles in size each August as a convoy of bash patrons make tracks through its red centre en route to the festival grounds on Belmont Station.
Broken Hill City Council estimates the bash has provided a more than $60 million benefit to The Silver City's economy over four years, including almost $18 million in 2025.
That figure is expected to swell substantially this year thanks to extra business from thousands of campers displaced after wet weather reduced the bash's capacity, and the addition of a prelude event - the Mundi Mundi Lightfest.
Designed to encourage festivalgoers to arrive early and spend more time in the region, the free, three-night Lightfest transformed Broken Hill's Argent St into a pedestrian-only night precinct with large-scale drone shows, lighting installations, live local music and street food.
Bash founder Greg Donovan reopened the gates at Mundiville on Saturday to give disappointed ticketholders turned away earlier in the week free entry to the final day, which featured performances by acts including Baby Animals, Butler and Stevens.
Broken Hill will roll out the welcome mat again on Sunday, when the convoy of 10,000 punters who did make it through the gates of Mundiville motor back through town to restock and head home.
* AAP travelled to the Mundi Mundi Bash with the assistance of event organisers.
