Monday, August 22, 2022

The Myponga Music Festival Returns

Some fifty-one years ago, there was a pop festival in my home town of Myponga, South Australia

Yes, Australia's answer to Woodstock occured at the place where my mother now lives, literally a couple of kilometres down the road. The lineup was great. Black Sabbath, complete with Ozzy Osborne (like Ozzy Osborne has been to my home town!), Daddy Cool, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, and Spectrum to name the headline acts. 


Allegedly they messed up a cow paddock pretty good, and then for the next couple of decades, this Festival dove back into the depths of obscurity. 

Mention Myponga to most people and they snigger at the name and ask where it is. 

My normal reply comes as, "Seventy kilometres South of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula on the road to Victor Harbor." It's about as accurate as you get for a town without a pub - and from what I know now, without a General Store or post office, or bank - but it does have a good bakery, a brewery and Sunday Markets now. If you're lucky the little servo will be open at the end of the town. 

Anyway, listening to the news this morning, they were reporting that the Myponga Festival might be making a return. With some of the original line up coming down for the show. 

LIKE MYPONGA WILL GO MENTAL! How are they going to fit all of these people in a down that barely contains 300 on a good day? And will a decent knowledge of the back paddocks mean I can sneak in?

Anyway, a did a bit of interwebbing and it was verified that the Mayor of Yankalilla (the local council - Myponga is too small to have it's own shire) was working with people to get this up and running. 

Not so strangely, the Mayor of Yankalilla also happens to be a Facebook friend of mine - and my sister's ex, and we are the same age and went to high school together. 

I dropped him a note - as you do - asking if this was true. And if locals could get tickets? 

He came back. Yes to the former. Nay to the latter at the moment, and I have a funny feeling he's probably had a few of his old school mates contacting him asking the same question.  (Mind you, the last time I saw him was at my niece's funeral - before that, I'd run into him at the family big barbeque. It's not like I haven't seen him since the mid-eighties). 

But we might have to get tickets to this - maybe get a couple of us over from Melbourne - maybe pitch a tent on Mum's lawn - and watch Black Sabbath come on out their zimmer frames and Ross Wilson and Daddy Cool jump around the stage threatening to do a hip.

It might be a fun weekend. 

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