Festivals - Part 8

Sunbury Rock Festival, Australia

The Sunbury Rock Festival was held from 1972 to 1975 on a farm near Melbourne.  Although there had been previous rock festivals in Australia, the 1972 Sunbury festival has been called Australia's Woodstock.

The festival was held on the Australia Day weekend in January, which is summer in Australia, and the weather was hot.

No problem.  There was a creek next to the festival grounds.

Here are some guys playing in the creek in 1972, with a brief bit of music from the festival: Australian group SCRA singing "Roly Poly."

Cooling off at the 1973 festival.

Nudity was not confined to the creek, like this guy strolling through the crowd in 1973.

Or this guy in 1973.  The woman is not showing the reaction that one hopes for after stripping.

This photo from the 1974 festival, by Australian fashion photographer Rennie Ellis, was called "Sunbury confrontation."  I'm not really sure what's going on.

The 1974 festival was notable, in retrospect, because the British band Queen, not yet famous, played at the festival and was booed, possibly because of their glitzy costumes, unlike the other down-to-earth rockers.  At the end of their performance, they were about to do an encore when the announcer asked the audience, "Do you want to hear these pommy poofters a little more or do you want to hear Madder Lake?"  Of course, the audience wanted Madder Lake, an Australian band.  As they left the stage, Queen singer Freddie Mercury told the audience, "When we come back to Australia, Queen will be the biggest band in the world."

The 1975 festival was plagued by rain (it was nicknamed Mudbury), which caused poor attendance and financial losses, and that was the festival's last year.