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The music festival that gets everything right · The Front

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be there, Andrew's not going this year,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: so we won't be hanging out at three am and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Legends Lounge at West Leeks Club watching people's square
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: dance into the way hours. Unfortunately, you won't be doing
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: that by myself.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm Claire Harvey. Last time we sat down for a
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: chat with review editor Tim Douglas. He just returned from
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: a trip to Japan exploring the world of Yayoi Kasama.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Just below that is this pumpkin. I think it's a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: real metaphor for Sama herself.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: You know, it sits.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: There on this precipice. It feels like it could be
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: just one calamitous event away from terminal decline, and yet
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: it endures.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Tim's a very smart guy and he loves his high
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: end art forms. But he also loves a plaintive vocal
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: and a jangling guitar, and that's why he spent this
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: week at the fifty third Tamworth Country Music Festival. When
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: it came to throwing a coin in the jukebox and
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: choosing a song, jazz legend Charlie Parker, the virtuoso genius
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: who changed the art form forever, would always choose a
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: country song. Friends would ask why country. It's the stories man,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: was his famous answer, and a century on, it turns
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: out today's superstars are also a little bit country. From
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Beyonce to Post Malones, country music is one of the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: world's most popular art forms, and it's all about the stories, relatable,
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  Speaker 2: honest and just so damn catchy.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: When I was a kid, you know, we did this
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: trip up through the central Australia and it must have
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: been a big time for John Williamson in the late eighties,
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  Speaker 1: early nineties, and he had this song called the Boomerang
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Cafe and it went at the Boomerang Cafe where I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: first met you, where you with lipstick on your lips,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: with lipstick on vinegar on your chips.
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  Speaker 3: Beautiful.
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  Speaker 2: John Williamson, who turns eighty this year, is still touring
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  Speaker 2: and he performed on the big stage last night in Tamworth.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Tim I always am intrigued by Tamworth as an expression
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: of Australian culture, an expression that's kind of, you know,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: framed in this very American art form of country music.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: How has Australia and Tamworth in particular, claimed country music
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  Speaker 2: as its own.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I think there's been a lot of snobbery over the
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  Speaker 1: last kind of four or five decads towards country music.
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  Speaker 1: But until you've kind of taken step on the invariably
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  Speaker 1: melting bitumen of Tamworth in high summer and immerse yourself
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: in this most singular festival on the Australian calendar, you
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: really can't pass judgment because it is a festival like
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  Speaker 1: no other. It has since nineteen seventy three owned country music.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Since that time it has grown and grown and grown,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and so too has Australia's country music industry at a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: local level and Australia's consumption of country music. It's grown exponentially.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Why is Timworth surviving as a festival when so many
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: other music festivals are really struggling in the post COVID era,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: It's a great question.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Tamworth is unique because it's a community owned and run event.
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  Speaker 1: The council does most of the work, and most of
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the local venues licensed and otherwise run their own shows.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It's overseen by the council, so it's very different. I mean,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: obviously there are commercial imperatives from the artists and also
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: obviously the council. But it is a grassroots festival through
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and through.
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  Speaker 2: Is there something too about the demographic tim, I'm presuming
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  Speaker 2: it's not quite the same young people who are queuing
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: up at the pill testing tent who come to the
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Tamworth Music Festival. Or am I wrong about that?
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Well?
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  Speaker 1: Look, there are pills being tested, but sometimes when Webster
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: packs no, I mean I'm being flippant there. Of course,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: this is a really interesting thing. It's not all boot
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: scooting and square dancing. There's an old country side to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the festival too. There's a place called the World's Dog
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  Speaker 1: and the Tamworth Hotel which posts you know, these alternative
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: country musicians like Georgia State Line, Henry Wagons comes and
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  Speaker 1: plays there and so you get the hip country kids
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: coming along too. Of course you've got you know Casey Chambers,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you're John Williamson's De Troy Cassa.
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  Speaker 3: Daies etc.
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  Speaker 1: Who sell out the big ticketed shows at the Entertainment
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  Speaker 1: Center and the town Hall.
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  Speaker 3: But there are so many things happening.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: We're talking about more than eight hundred artists and five
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: thousand shows across ten days. It is the biggest live
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  Speaker 1: music event in the country, indeed in the Southern hemisphere.
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  Speaker 3: So it's a massive event.
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  Speaker 2: You're going solo this year and what are you looking
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: forward to seeing.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to Peel Street. Now Peel Street
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  Speaker 1: of course, the main street running through Tamworth. Four hundred
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  Speaker 1: buskers every year, at any time of the day populate
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  Speaker 1: this little boulevard, the Boulevard of dreams they call it.
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  Speaker 1: Keith Urban was spotted on Peel Street. Casey Chambers, Becky Cole,
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  Speaker 1: Troy cassa daily. They all did their time as buskers
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  Speaker 1: and now they're the senior members of the Australian country
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  Speaker 1: music industry and they give back to these young kids.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, it's a real kind of organism, the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: country music festival. People are always giving back. Yeah.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And how does it fit into the kind of landscape
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  Speaker 2: of live music in Australia. Team We often hear talk
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: about how live music is dead, that pubs aren't allowed
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: to play loud music anymore because residential areas have grown
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: up around them, that it's difficult to fight with the
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: pokes to actually get a space to play in the
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: venues that have nurtured some of our great bands. What
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: do you think about how country music and particularly Tenworth
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: fits into.
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  Speaker 1: That Spotify I put out a report last year that
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: said Australia was the third highest consumer of country music
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  Speaker 1: in the world. The US, of course, the spiritual home
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: of country and western first, then Canada second, and Australia
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was third. And I think that's a really interesting statistic
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to bear in mind because for anyone who thinks that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: he's a blip on the cultural landscape, I mean it
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  Speaker 1: really is not. Also, everyone's a country music star now know.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Beyonce last year had a huge hit with her country album.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: We are critically assessing this week in review, Ringo Star's
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: latest album is a country album. And you know, in
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: case we hadn't jumped the shark already, the Whittles have
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  Speaker 1: a country album coming out in March, and this is
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: no small fry lp. We've got collaborations with Dolly Parton,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Awful Peck, Troy Cassa Daily, the Wolf Brothers. It's called
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Wiggle Up, Gide Up, and you should expect to hear
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: much about that. Everyone wants a piece of this pie.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Now the dial has really shifted. It is no longer
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: something we.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: Do in the shadows. Country music is a big player.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: What have been some of the musical highlights that you've
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: seen over the years at Tamworth.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I have to thank music writer Andrew McMillan for
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: putting me onto Fanny Lumsden. She's a country music staff
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  Speaker 1: from the Snowy Mountains in South Wales. She grew up
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: in West Wylong and indeed has a song about growing
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: up on the other side of the Great Dividing Range.
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  Speaker 3: She's a fantastic singer.
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  Speaker 1: Her brother and her husband are in her band and
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  Speaker 1: her shows are just so joyous. Andrew and I saw
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Fanny out at Tamworth a couple of years ago.
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  Speaker 3: It was really one of the highlights.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Andrew also wrote a piece last year about the best
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: gigs of twenty twenty four and one of his highlights
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: was Casey Chambers at the Town Hall in January last
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: year for the festival.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: We're both there for that show.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: You Better Yourself, and she finished it with this rousing
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: rendition of Eminem's Lose Yourself, best known from eight Mile.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Only Girt one shot.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Do not miss your chance.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: To blow this up, but son. She starts off with
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a banjo and her just singing and ends with Casey
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  Speaker 1: screaming at the top of her lungs and kind of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: collapsing on.
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  Speaker 3: The floor as a dad. Bill Chambers is kind of wailing.
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  Speaker 1: On guitar and her partner Brandon on another guitar and
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  Speaker 1: the drum. It was the most phenomenal musical experience for
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  Speaker 1: me too of twenty twenty four.
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  Speaker 3: We just sat there and had her hair blown back.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Tim Douglas is editor of the australians Beloved Weekend Arts
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: section Review. Tim and the team cover the arts twenty
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: four to seven and you can check it out anytime
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: at the Australian dot com dot A. Thanks for joining
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: us this week on the front. Our team is Kristin Amiot, Leat,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Sam mcglue, Tiffany Dimack, Joshua Burton, Stella McKenna, Stephanie Coombs,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Jasper Leek, who wrote our music as well as producing
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: and editing this episode, and meet Claire Harvey.