|
Where it's at
Tamworth is the country music capital of Australia - the Nashville
of the Antipodes - with this unique style of music being the
main focus of the town year round. Here, the information centre
is guitar-shaped, the town's entrance is marked by a 36ft
guitar and country music stars are represented in a waxwork
hall of fame.
But all of the toe-tappin', boot-scootin' and two-steppin'
reaches its climax every January, when Tamworth plays host
to one of the biggest and best country music festivals in
the world. Beginning with a 7-day pre-festival countdown,
the 10-day event culminates with the Golden Guitar Awards
and, on Australia Day (26th January), a massive outdoor concert
set against a backdrop of the Australian summer night sky
exploding in a dazzling display of celebratory fireworks.
History of the Tamworth Festival
The festival has its roots in the work of radio station 2TM,
which in the 1960's aired specialist shows to win back audiences
who were being wooed away by the advent of television. Hoedown,
a show devoted to country music, became so popular that in
the space of a few years, jamborees were being held in Tamworth
over the Australia Day long weekend and the first Golden Guitar
awards were being presented. In the space of 30 years, the
event has grown to be the extravaganza that it is today, a
lively celebration of Australian country music which annually
draws crowds of around 40,000 and stages about 2,500 events
in over 100 different venues.
What happens at the Festival
Whether you're after the plaintive strains of crying-in-your-beer,
lonesome cowboy music, the plinkety-plink of the banjo, the
rollicking sounds of the country fiddle, or big voices belting
out lyrics about big emotions in big landscapes, you'll find
it all right here. Australia's Anglo-Celtic origins combine
with the influences of Australia itself in bush ballads, bluegrass,
folky-blues, acoustic sets and wailing harmonicas that provide
the context for gritty and smoky vocal performances.
Participants include everyone from country-music stars, to
buskers on Peel Street (known as the Boulevard of Dreams
due to the many artists who have risen to stellar heights
from discovery here), bush poets and rodeo riders. A massive
collective of bootscooters join buckles for the world's biggest
line-dance - 6,744 in 2002, proudly maintaining its place
in the Guinness Book of Records. A street parade with
floats provides a further splash of colour to the crowd who
sport big hats, flashy shirts, rhinestones and fringing plus
denim, denim and more denim.
However, this is Australia and no mistake about it - so, as
well as country music devotees, you're just as likely to see
casual observers cheating the heat in shorts and singlet tops.
This ain't no pale imitation of the trashy commercialism of
mainstream American country & western music - not a Dolly
or Kenny to be seen - but a distinctly Australian celebration
of culture, heritage, identity and the role of country music
in all of these. The temptation would be to say Yee-ha. |
