The Vines festival appearance

The Vines have made their first festival appearance in almost 18 months on Saturday (July 22).

The band played at Byron Bay's Splendour The Grass festival, the first time they've played such an event after frontman Craig Nichols had to quit touring due to being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

The band had made their live return last week (July 17) playing as Joe Dirt at Sydney's Annandale Hotel, but the festival slot marked their first time the group have played recently under their own name.

Speaking to NME.COM, Nichols explained he was glad to finally play live - and trash his instrument at the end of the set - again.

"It felt great to be back on stage," he declared after his band's set. "The hardest thing about the last two years has been not playing live. We can't wait to play UK again. I guess I need to get a new guitar now. Things are about to get real complicated."

The Vines played:

'Dope Train'
'Highly Evolved'
'Animal Machine'
'Don't Listen To The Radio'
'Gross Out'
'Vision Valley'
'Outtathaway'
'Nothin's Comin'
'Ride'
'Fuk Yeh'
'1969'
'Ms Jackson'
'Get Free'
'Fuck The World'

The show also marked the first full appearance of new bassist Brad Heald, although Nichols enjoyed a friendly reunion with his original bandmate Patrick Matthews backstage, who was playing the festival with his new band Youth Group.

With the show going well, it's now expected that The Vines will announce more shows, with UK dates strongly rumoured.document.write(unescape("