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.

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.

The Press is designed as as 1920's Speakeasy and has a wall of scotch - I'm in heaven!

All that scotch ...... and I had a chocolate martini 😇 I just really like cocktails!

Anyway we watched the place fill up, and we were pleased we got there early to get good seats.

We also stayed after Michael to watch Dwayne Picklegun.

We had a great time in Tamworth, and will probably be there again next year - especially if my lovely sister is going to be there.

'The Weir' at Oodies

A number of years back at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, we 'discovered' Michael Waugh at 'Writers in the Round'. I'm not sure what songs he sang or what made us want to follow him but he sings songs about real life, and each of his songs has a story behind it. His songs bring us so much joy and so many memories. Even our granddaughters in England sing along to some of his songs. Michael is a real gentleman and true Australian.

Michael was performing his new album 'The Weir' at Oodies in Bundaberg one Friday night and we were happy to to make the 4-5 hour trip up the highway, and visit some friends while we were there. 

But this blog is not about Bundy, as we didn't really do a lot of sightseeing - we will do that another time - this blog is about Oodies as a cafe and a venue for artists to perform, and Michael Waugh.

How to describe Oodies? It is a friendly, quirky, cafe with lots of odds and ends, and 'old stuff'. 

This was our table. Table C.

 

Oodies has a great breakfast and lunch menu, with some breakfast items being available all day.

Our local friends had been to Oodies previously for coffee but were not aware there were performers there, usually on Friday nights. On these nights there is a dinner menu. We all had something different, and for me who is usually a fussy eater, couldn't decide between 3 of the 6 meals offered. It was great to have a choice.

I chose the Chicken and Chorizo Parmi (Oodies style). It was so good. The fries were sweet potatoes.

Peter chose the steak salad.

 We were there for the music. It was a lovely cosy intimate venue for artists.

The first artist was Scott Cook from Edmonton Canada. He was really good, a folk singer that reminded me of Arlo Guthrie.

 But we were there for Michael Waugh.

 And we even had our Michael Waugh shirts on, which we discovered that night were black and red for the Maffra footie team. Did not know that. - and Peter takes blurry photos lol!

 So now we are keeping an eye on the next time we can see Michael in concert.