Tamworth Country Music Festival 50th Anniversary

 

 

What great time we had at the Tamworth Festival this year, but it was so different from other years. The first time we went to the festival was way back in 2012 and it was to see my sister and brother in law who live over 900km away from us. We have only missed two festivals since, (one - we had to leave on the day we arrived due to the early birth of a beautiful grandchild; two - we were travelling around Tasmania), well three if you count the cancelled one (2021) due to the C. 

We love catching up with family and we have enjoyed some really good music.

The last time we were at the Tamworth Music Festival was 2020, when we stayed at Paradise Tourist Park, this time we stayed at the Riverside Camping area. We have stayed there once before but it was so hot in January, this time in April the days were lovely and the nights  little cool, well cold! The weather was the first big difference with this years change of date. Our first Tamworth we had temperatures in the low to mid 40's. It was too cold to go out at night, although we did brave to cold to see Della Harris at the Riverside Campground Stage.

We waited after the concert to get a photo. Della is a lovely lady and a great singer.

 

It was lovely to walk around the streets during the day listening to the buskers ....

and the different performers on stages as the weather was perfect.

We went to paid concerts and free concerts and enjoyed every one of them. There were not as many events as usual which meant for some performers we wanted to see, they only performed once and we had conflicts. We did miss one performer we wanted to see, so 🤞next year. Our usual daily routine in January always started at Tamworth Services Club for Writers in the Round, but that wasn't on this time, so we had relaxing cups of tea and breakfast at the campsite.

Our first event was to see the Carr brothers at West Tamworth League's Club. We have seen Mike Carr (and his alter ego) a number of times, but not his brother. A very entertaining show.

We went to the Capital Theatre to see SHINE, a showcase of rising stars:- Angus Gill; Kiara Rodrigues; Leyton Milner; Kaitlyn Thomas; and Liam Kennedy-Clark, and up and coming singers:- Lily Grace; Felicity Dowd; Sarah Hamze; Jamie Preston; Grace Mae; and Ruby Jane.

We also got to see Lynn Bowtell perform. 

I knew that a young singer that I follow on socials was going to be performing and I wanted to hear her sing live. Lily Grace has a beautiful voice.

My sister has spoken about Angus Gill and how good he is, and he was also performing - bonus. After the show I wanted to say hi to Lily, but there were so many people around her and she was busy so I said a quick hello and then went off to our next event.

We also went to the same venue the next day to see Della Harris, Andy Penkow, Dan Higgins and Willow. They were all good and after the show we got to chat with Della and Andy and get more photos.

We walked around a lot more, and went to many more venues than we would normally go to, even though there were not as many shows on. We did go to see Michael Waugh at his only performance, always a highlight since we first saw him at Writers in the Round way back in 2016. That made the third time this year we have seen Michael perform.

And the group photo....

Like my sister, I like to find at least one new singer to follow. This year it was a busker that we saw at the Michael Waugh concert - Jacob Vincent, ....

.... we later saw him busking in Peel Street, so good. 

A second talented singer was Liam Kennedy-Clark. We saw him at the SHINE concert where he not only featured but also backed up all the performers. He was very good.

We go to Tamworth for the music festival, but there is so much more to see and do in and around Tamworth.