Sunbury Pop Festival

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The Sunbury Pop Festival was a music festival held on a 620 acre private farm in Sunbury, Victoria that ran on the Australia Day long weekend from 1972 to 1975. The festival attracted up to 45,000 music lovers each year. It signalled the end of the hippie peace movement of the '60s and the beginning of the reign of pub rock [1]. It holds legendary status in the history of Australian rock and has been compared to America's Woodstock Festival. The festival folded in 1975 after heavy losses resulting from bad weather and high fees charged by visiting overseas act Deep Purple.

Michael Gudinski was involved with the running of the festival, and record company Mushroom Records' first release was a triple-disc live recording from the '73 festival. Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs also released a live recording of their performance at the '72 festival. In 1974 the festival featured its first international act - Queen, who were "booed off the stage to screams of 'go back to Pommyland, ya pooftahs'."[2] Skyhooks were also booed off stage, and after watching a recording of their performance, lead singer Steve Hill quit and was replaced by Graham "Shirley" Strachan. [3]

The Fauves in 1998 recorded a song called "Sunbury 97" on their LP Lazy Highways. The lyrics, in part, read: There's the tree where mum & dad conceived me / Do you believe that I'm a child of Sunbury '73?. Chris Wilson also recorded a track Sunbury '73 on his 1998 album The Long Weekend, that reminisces about a road trip south from Sydney to attend the concert.

From time to time calls are made to resurrect Sunbury, the latest being promoter Michael Chugg in 2005.[4] However the widespread success of alternative rock festivals of the 1990s (for example, the Big Day Out) make a successful resurrection seem unlikely.

Contents

[edit] Location

The four Sunbury Pop Festivals were held on on the same 620 acre private farm along Jacksons Creek, on the southern outskirts of Sunbury, between Sunbury and Diggers Rest. The Property was owned by farmer and local identity George Duncan, and the property has become known in the district over the years simply as "Duncan's farm". The entrance gates to the Sunbury Pop Festivals was off Watsons Road. Also because of its close proximity to the smaller township of Digger Rest, many of the attendees who traveled to Sunbury by train, actually alighted at Diggers Rest Railway station, and not Sunbury.

[edit] Sunbury Pop Festival attendances

Although the Sunbury was not the first pop festival to be held in Australia, it benefited from the highest levels of promotion and publicity of any festival and despite the flagging attendances towards the end of its life, consistently attracted the largest crowds. Up to 40,000 attended Sunbury in 1972, although, looking back in 1973, John Fowler, who assisted George Duncan in the management of the site for the purposes of the festivals, was quoted as saying "the papers put it from anything from twenty-fire to sixty-thousand people. How can you tell for sure?"

[edit] 1972

The first Sunbury Pop festival titled "Rock Happening of 1972" and ran from Saturday January 29 to Monday January 31, 1972. The attendance was 35,000 - 40,000 and the entry fee was $6.00 (3 days), $5.00 (2 days), $1.00 (1 day).

[edit] Band Line-up

1972 featured 41 bands, and was opened by Madder Lake [5]. MCed by Gerry Humphries, one-time lead singer of the The Loved Ones.

[edit] 1973

Sunbury '73 ran from Saturday January 27 to Monday January 29. The attendance was 25,000 - 30,000 and the entry fee was $8.00 (3 days), $7.00 (2 days), $5.00 (1 day). MCed by Paul Hogan.

[edit] Band Line-up

[edit] 1974

Sunbury '74 ran from Saturday January 25 to Monday January 28. The MC was former Masters Apprentices lead singer Jim Keays. The attendance was approximately 30,000 and the entry fee was $12.00 (3 days), $10.00 (2 days), $5.00 (1 day). A new concept of a second performing stage was added to include "alternative performances such as jazz recitals, theatre, dance, mime, poetry and acoustic music[6].

[edit] Band Line-up

  • Skyhooks
  • The Dingoes
  • Kush
  • Buster Brown
  • Chain
  • Madder Lake
  • MacKenzie Theory
  • Ayers Rock
  • Sid Rumpo
  • Ross Ryan
  • The 69'ers
  • Daddy Cool - reformed especially for this event
  • Queen (UK)

[edit] 1975

Sunbury '75 ran from Saturday January 24 to Monday January 27. The attendance was only 15,000-16,000 and the festival suffered terminal financial losses. The entry fee was $20.00. A concept of a second stage was repeated for this year to cater for more "alternative" acts such as dance, mime, poetry and acoustic music[7].

Deep Purple went home with $60,000, while most local bands went home empty handed. AC/DC refused to play after Deep Purple roadies provoked fights with them. [8]

[edit] Band Line-up

  • Jim Keays

The girl group "The Cookies" sang as backing singers for various artists including Kush and Linda George (they sang at three of the four Sunbury Rock Festivals).

[edit] References

[edit] External links