The Lion’s Club of Wandong-Wallan with support from the Kilmore Lion’s Club instigated one of Wandong’s greatest attractions with the introduction of the Country and Western Music Festival in April 1972. Originally organisers John Knox and Ross Smith had approached Barbara Dowling, the editor of a monthly Country & Western magazine, with the intention of inviting a Country & Western band to entertain at a Lion’s Club barbecue. Barbara who had been blind since childhood had a great interest in Country & Western music and as well as her magazine ran an import record business. From this germ of an idea grew the kernel of what was to become known Australia wide as the “Biggest Country & Western Music show in the Southern Hemisphere”
At the first festival held at the L B Davern Reserve 1800 people including twenty-one carloads of police attended. Festivals in those days were synonymous with Sunbury, which meant kids, sex, drugs, booze and all sorts of dreadfully indictable things. The police found themselves instead at a big musical family day out. They played with the children, chatted to the parents and wondered what the hell they were doing there in such strength and left. In future only the Kilmore divvy van attended, doing a drive through at different times during the day.
The Lion’s held working bees every year to provide facilities for the rapidly growing crowds, which were attending the one-day festival each March, building a toilet block, BBQ facilities and a stage.
The Third Annual Festival in 1974 attracted crowds of approximately 11,000 and the festival was now on the map as a yearly ‘must see’ for country and western music fans. The winner of the prize money was Promised Band.
The Fourth Annual Festival on Sunday March 4th 1975 had become an official Moomba attraction and drew 15,000 people to our small hamlet of Wandong with a population of just 120. Many came from interstate to see bands competing for the $1,000 prize money. With not one international artist on the program, this was amazing for Australia. Slim Dusty; the King of Country Music and holder of 12 gold records was the special guest artist along with the Hawking Brothers, Eureka Smith and the winner of the third festival, Promised Band.
The headlines in Melbourne metropolitan papers screamed “THE PUB WITH NO BEER COMES TO THE TOWN WITH NO PUB” and were amazed at the crowds that attended this festival in such an out of the way place no one had ever heard of. The crowd went wild when Slim Dusty sang this famous gold record hit. They danced, clapped or just sat and listened drinking beer. When Slim arrived in Wandong with his wife and daughter he did not want to stay amongst the hordes at the oval. He approached Laurie Davern regarding renting the old McDonald farmhouse which still stood on his property. It was an old four-room weatherboard cottage with hessian walls and was in a sad state of disrepair as no one had lived in the building for a number of years. Laurie showed him the house with some disbelief that he would even consider renting it. But Slim declared “It’s a bloody palace!” The three of them stayed a week. There were two old steamer chairs left on the back verandah, which Slim had used during his stay. One of these he purchased from Laurie before he left. Laurie was dumbfounded; anyone else would have just pinched the ratty old thing.
The program was thrown into chaos when many of the bands were late arriving due to a mammoth traffic jam on all roads leading to Wandong. Traffic police had their work cut out for them to untangle the snarl of stop-go vehicles. Despite good work by the Kilmore Apex Club who handled parking at the ground, hundreds were unable to get in and had to park in surrounding streets up to more than a mile away and walk. Vic Rail ran special trains on the Sunday for the first time. Organisers thank residents for their patience for the inconveniences they had.
Police kept watch with binoculars from vantage points but the large crowd was very well behaved with only a few incidents. There were long queues at all refreshment stands throughout the day but the good natured crowd accepted the conditions with good humour. Much of the catering was done by local charity organisations.
The Queen of Moomba arrived for the official opening. She was welcomed by Cr. Laurie Davern and Shire President, Tom Dumaresq and his wife, who presented her with a necklace as a memento of her visit. The Queen then made a presentation to Miss Country Music 1975. Lion’s Club President, Jim Chapman thanked everyone for their support and Cr. Dumaresq expressed his appreciation to the club for organising such a big event for the Shire. Mr. Ray Weir, a Director of Moomba, officially opened the festival.
Rain fell throughout the day but it didn’t dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm or spirits. A special song “Wandong” was written especially for the event and was presented during the program by the Double Dee Group. Graham Hocking was again the compare with special guest compare, 3DB Disc jockey, Dave Pincombe, who said “ country music has the biggest single following in the world.”
Winners of the $500 prize money for Best Group were Reflection from Albury. Runners up were Orange Blossom who received $150. Third placegetter was Country Way winning $100, 4th was Reg Poole & the Country Trend with $75, 5th was Country Pride $60 and 6th Western Rovers $40. Best Trucking Song went to Western Rovers with $50 prize money. Best Australian Composition was won by Coda winning $50 and Best New Talent went to Country Gold with $50 also. Profits from this year’s festival were in excess of $10,200 that was used to assist district and other charities and organisations with their work.
The 5th Annual Festival in March 1976 was now officially the biggest single attraction of the Sun Moomba Festival and was known for featuring local artists. Reg Lindsay, The Hawking Brothers, Lee Conway, Eureka Smith were some of the headline artists at this years festival, attracting crowds in excess of 20,000. John Minson, the voice of Tamworth radio station 2TN ‘Country Music Capital of Australia’, urged visitors to head south for the ’biggest country music show in the Southern Hemisphere.’ All very flattering for the tiny township of Wandong.
The 6th Annual Festival held on the 12th-13th March 1977 became a two-day event for the first time with the introduction of a Truck & Country Music Festival. The crowd was in excess of 30,000, many arriving with caravans from as far away as Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales. Some had never missed a festival yet and many friendships were renewed over a drink and a meal.
The Sun Moomba Queen, Sharyn Duncan, officially opened the Festival. The organisers presented her with a special appreciation award to say thank you. The crowd went wild dancing, clapping and singing along to Dave Dudley from Nashville, Tennessee, USA; whose first hit song “Six Days on the Road” was a winner with the audience. He said he had never seen anything like it (the festival) and couldn’t wait to come back. Cash Backman and the Saltbush Group, Lee Conway, Johnny Chester and Deneise Morrison were just some of the performers who entertained the crowds over the two days.
“Tamworth might call itself the country music capital – they’re just not in it with Wandong,” said organiser Wally Bishop.
Roadapple Bluegrass Showband were the winners of the Encouragement Award of a Yamaha amplifier, trophy and cash. Hit & Run were second prizewinners of $150. The festival judges this year, were well-known composer Brian Dawe and Barbara Dowling, who had played a major part in all the festivals since the first one. Truck backing contests, tarp tying competitions, wheel changing races and truckie songs were a major feature at this years festival, drawing large crowds of onlookers to cheer for the contestants. The overall winner of the competitions on a time scale, was Athol Chester, who drove between Melbourne and Sydney for Bruce Panucci. He won a $400 deluxe suspension seat and a silver tray went to second place-getter S. Ball and third place-getter M Peterson. Over $2 million dollars worth of the best in big rigs was on display for the crowd. The introduction of the truck exhibits and the competitions were a great success, bringing many truck enthusiasts from around the country to Wandong.
The Eighth Festival now the Truck & Country Music Festival was held on the weekend of March 10-11 1979 and saw the tiny oval at Wandong surrounded by a circle of trees, colourful tent stalls, advertising signs – with every square metre covered by trucks, buses, caravans, cars, trailers and people. They carried eskies, cans and bottles, umbrellas, cushions, barbeques and blankets. Everywhere could be seen high heeled boots, Stetson hats thermos flasks and cut lunches.
There were 43 different acts to entertain the crowd over the weekend and the crowd stayed while the bands played – they stomped, romped and danced.
A two record set was produced for sale in 1979, with artists freely contributing their talents as all proceeds of sales went direst to UNICEF. Some of the artists featured on the records were; Tex Morton, Lee Conway, the Hawking Brothers, 1901, Cash Backman, Kevin Shegog, Ray Kernaghan, Jan Kelly, Roadapple, Eureka Smith, ‘Cowboy’ Bob Puttell, Cobbers and John McSweeney. A copy of the records can be seen mounted above the fireplace in the Magpie & Stump Bistro and at the Wandong-Heathcote Junction Sports & Community Centre.
James ”Jazzer” Smith, editor of ‘Across Country Australia’, a national country music magazine and drummer and vocalist in the country band ‘Homestead’, wrote on the flycover of the record the following tribute to Wandong.
“Wonderful Wandong – with it’s hustle, bustle, sweat and heat, it’s hot dogs, pies and coke cola, toilet queues and honky tonk blues, berets and beanies, smilers and meanies, braless girls and topless blokes and truckies telling dirty jokes. Grinning grannies and crackling trannies, tapping feet, sizzling heat and a country beat.”
It was the ultimate experience for professional and amateur country music entertainers in Australia. An outstanding feature of the festivals was each of the past winning bands had gone onto become stars in their own right. Wandong made Australian music history with a sensational growth over eight years. The festival was outgrowing the town which only had a population of 500 at that time. The following year it was moved to a property at Wallan not far away. But without the ambience and atmosphere of the Wandong site at the L B Davern Reserve it was never the same again and the following year was the last festival to be had that century.
