Are We There Yet?: 2020 Tamworth Country Music Festival

Friday 6 March 2020

2020 Tamworth Country Music Festival

Late every January, Tamworth holds Australia's biggest Country Music Festival. We love going to Tamworth, especially when the festival is on as we get to catch up with my sister and brother-in-law. January temperatures in Tamworth can be in the high 30's, in fact the first year we came to Tamworth for the festival the tempreture reached a high of 43 degrees one day. We have stayed at Chaffey Dam, but it is a little too far out of town, and we have stayed at the Riverside Park that is open for campers only when the festival is on. This year, we stayed at Paradise Tourist Park mainly because the fees were very reasonable at $40 per night, power and water. Other tourist parks wanted double that, so we were very happy to stay at Paradise.

We had a good site right next to the Peel River, not flowing too well due to the long time drought.

The park had a pool, and we had intended to use the pool, but with so many venues air-conditioned we never got around to it. Another good feature of the park was that it was close to the main central area of the festival.

We chose a cooler day - low 30's 😉 - to walk along Peel Street and watch the many buskers and visited some of the pubs. There are plaques along one side of Peel Street that record the Golden Guitars winners for each year and bronze statues of golden oldies. Here, Slim Dusty and Joy McKean stand proudly by the pedestrian crossing.

...And we always visit Smokey. The metal seat was very very hot!

After walking along Peel Street and Peter visiting the Toyota car area, we headed back to the van park via the Bicentennial Park. In this park are many bronze busts that seems to grow every few years. There are also sandstone statues.....

..... and wooden sculptures. Bicentennial Park is where the free evening concerts are held.

All these, and many more, can be seen any time of the year. The festival is all about the music. There are many free events and many paid for events - at very reasonable prices. We start the day with Writers in the Round at The Services Club Tamworth and a cup of tea, and sometimes a toastie. We have seen and been introduced to the music of many artists at the Services Club. Each morning, from 9am to 11.30am, three artists take turns in performing their own songs, and often tell the story behind the song. This is where we were introduced to 8 Ball Aitken.

.. and the wonderful Michael Waugh - his music travels everywhere with us on our travels (even on our cruises). We tried to get to all of Michael's performances.

This year my favourite newbie (new to me) was Della Harris - check out her song Must Have Been the Wine.

Della Harris, 8 Ball Aitken, Karin Page.

Michael Waugh, Brad Butcher, Col Finlay.

We stayed after the Writers in the Round a couple of days to see the artists performing from 12 noon to 3pm, Col Finlay one day, and Luella Widt on two days. We love Luella.

Her shows are always entertaining.

This year we went to two venues we hadn't been to before, and we will be back at both again next year. Moonshiners Honky Tonk Bar at the Family Pub was a paid show to see Michael Waugh.

We were lucky to get front row seats.

We didn't do a lot of paid shows this year, and other than Michael Waugh at the Honky Tonk, didn't venture too far from the centre of town. Would have liked to go out to the Longyard to see Mick Lindsay, but didn't venue out that far. We did go to another new bar, The Press, not far from the Services Club, to see Michael Waugh. We got there an hour early and saw another two artists before Michael came on, and it was lovely to sit and enjoy the ambience. 'The Press' is located in the basement of a building where the Northern Daily Leader Newspaper was once published. 'The Press' is located 179 Marius St, in The Leader Building. It was built in 1924/25 and the basement was where the printing presses were located. Tamworth's first Newspaper was the Tamworth Weekly Times in 1873.