By Stuart Coupe
MYPONGA: SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S FIRST POP FESTIVAL By Lindsay Buckland (Lindsay Buckland, PB $49.99)
W
hat happens when you combine a love of history, a magnificent obsession, and the chronicling of popular culture in Australia? You get a book like Myponga by Lindsay Buckland. And I for one am so happy it exists. This country has a rich and varied history of music festivals going back to Odyssey/Wallacia, Sunbury and Myponga, then continuing through Narara, Tanelorne, Byron Bay Bluesfest, Port Fairy, Woodford, and sooooooo many others. In fact, I often – in a pre-COVID world – used to think that every time I woke up there was another Australian festival announced.
But let’s go back to the formative festivals. The Sunbury festivals have already been beautifully chronicled in Peter Evans’ lavish 2017 hardback, large format Sunbury: Australia’s Greatest Rock Festival, and now comes Myponga: South Australia’s First Pop Festival which runs to almost 500 pages of text and photographs. Author Buckland was there as a youngster. As he writes: “As a thirteen-year-old kid, I ventured down to the Myponga ’71 progressive pop festival. I remember after watching Black Sabbath’s mega explosive performance, becoming partially deaf with ears ringing over the next three days. It was an experience never forgotten, a seminal occasion for my eventual journey into the professional world of music several years later. Three years ago, after emerging from a Vipassana meditation retreat, the idea suddenly dawned on me to write a book about Myponga. This is a definitive account of South Australia’s first pop festival Myponga ’71.” Buckland’s book contains everything you could ever want to know – and then some – about the festival which was held over the weekend when January rolled into February 1971. The promoters are profiled, as is the poster designer. There’s almost 25 pages devoted to Master Of Ceremonies, Adrian Rawlins. Then there’s detailed run downs on everyone who played the festival. That’s well and good for the big names such as Black Sabbath, but at times slight overkill for some of the lesser names. Sabbath came to Australasia for the briefest of trips – the schedule being New Zealand on January 29, to Sydney for a reception the following day, down to Myponga, and then out and on to Tokyo, but before they left London the New Zealand and Japanese components were cancelled. Buckland captures times and place superbly: “Meantime Ozzy Osbourne was fretting about the never ending thirty-hour plane flight he was about to endure. The anxiety riddled Osbourne ended up coping by consuming no less than fifteen bottles of in-flight champagne before the plane touched down at Mascot Airport, Sydney on Friday January 29. During their four-hour layover, Sabbath held a press conference, then boarded a mid-afternoon Ansett flight
touching down at Adelaide Airport late afternoon. The ‘Paranoid’ single was sitting at number three position on the Adelaide 5AD singles chat. When Sabbath arrived, there was already sensationalised press about how loud the band were. ‘Don’t be surprised if you might hear them in inner suburban Adelaide when they play.’ Bill Ward, Black Sabbath’s drummer, appeared on Channel Nine’s Saturday morning music show Move. Interviewed by the show’s host Vince Lovegrove, Ward would later affably put out the call to any young ladies wanting to join the band at their hotel for a bit of partying later that evening, proceeding to provide the name of the hotel and the band’s room numbers.” The Australian contingent of headliners included Spectrum, Fanny Adams, Daddy Cool, Margret RoadKnight, Chain, Billy Thorpe And The Aztecs, Fraternity, Jeff St John (with Wendy Saddington and Copperwine), and Healing Force. Significant pages of the book are also devoted to the lesser lights on the bill – Uncle Jack, Storyville, the Coney Island Jug Band, Fat Angel, Octopus and so forth. Each entry for all artists functions as both a mini biography of the band, their appearance at the festival and their pre and post Myponga activities. Buckland even details information about artists who were booked for the festival but didn’t appear. Red Angel Panic caused a mini storm for pulling out due to claims of underpayment for local artists, and New Zealand’s Flying Biplane cancelled. As music historian and Rhythms contributor Ian McFarlane writes on the back cover: “This book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of Australian rock music. “I love this book. It’s every bit of more-than-we-really-need-to-know information that music nerds like you and I love delving into – plus the photos, handbills and illustrations are wonderful. It must be time for the 500-page book on the Odyssey Festival at Wallacia. Or the Narara book?” For copies go to: freestylepublications.com.au 97
