Big V: How canny music promoter delivered some of Australia’s best shows
He calls himself obsessive and longs for a “simple life” but even after 500 shows, A Day On The Green founder Michael Newton says this may be “one of the biggest summers ever”.
Victoria
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What do Rod Stewart, Crowded House, Cyndi Lauper, Boom Crash Opera and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have in common?
They are among hundreds of musicians who have played at Australian wineries as part of the open-air festival A Day On The Green.
Event founders Michael and Anthea Newton launched the venture in 2001 and soon received the backing of late music industry icon Michael Gudinski.
Since then more than 500 shows have been held, with superstar Robbie Williams adding five more this month, including at Mt Duneed Estate in Geelong, as part of his nine-gig Australian tour.
Michael Newton, who sat down for the Herald Sun’s Big V Interview to discuss his journey to the big stage, paid tribute to Gudinski and the Mushroom Group family for helping to secure the event’s success.
“I said to Michael once at one of our shows, where the audience was really involved, ‘how good is this? What a life!’’ Newton said.
“He looked at me incredulously and said, ‘have you only just worked that out?”
‘Why are we leaving again?’
Newton’s swimming ability has taken him across the English Channel, and around Manhattan Island. When he was a boy, it made him friends.
His father George worked in the Army and almost every year the family was uprooted and replanted in new “married quarters”.
This meant Newton attended 11 schools by the time he was a teenager, in locations as diverse as Townsville, Point Lonsdale, Singapore and Canberra.
“Sport was definitely a way in for me. As soon as I swam, or had a hit of cricket or something, kids would be like, ‘oh, OK’, and I’d have friends,” he said.
“I remember just packing up houses and sitting in the car saying ‘where are we going, why are we leaving again?’”
After the family stopped at Melbourne when Newton was in year 8, his mother Margaret declared it would be their final destination.
Despite the constant flux, Newton said it was a happy childhood for him and his two younger brothers.
Although George was a supportive father who coached soccer teams and taught the boys to swim, physical and emotional battles were being waged below the surface.
A Vietnam veteran, George was formally diagnosed with PTSD in the 1990s, although the family always sensed an “underlying tension”.
Before he died early last decade, the former Army teacher mulled joining a class action on the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, which had crippled his physical health.
Most of the emotional fallout was internalised, Newton said, other than when the family went to Victoria Street in Richmond for yum cha. “He kind of freaked out; he got upset because of the noise and the language and the smells,” he said.
At that point the family lived in Melbourne, and Newton was at De La Salle College in Malvern, which he said was thanks to his “infamous” cousins, the Stewarts.
Paul Stewart was the flamboyant frontman of the Painters and Dockers, and Tony Stewart was one of the “Balibo Five” journalists murdered in Timor Leste in 1975.
Serious young insects
Newton was a bright student, but his talents as a promoter also shone during high school.
In year 12 he organised the school social and relished dealing with bands and managers.
He took risks but hedged his bets with the acts – something that would become a proven strategy later in life – booking a New Wave pop-rock group with a cover band.
“I got the Serious Young Insects to play … the guts of that band went on to be Boom Crash Opera,” he said with a chuckle.
“They were very wrong for the year 12 social, but I luckily saved myself by booking a cover band to play after them.”
After graduating, Newton studied arts at the University of Melbourne and began a law degree before dropping out to pursue public relations at RMIT with an eye towards entertainment.
“My mum says I used to say, when I was 14 or 15, that ‘I want to work in some sort of entertainment but I don’t want to be on stage, I want to be in the business, I want to be behind it’,” he said.
Part of the unofficial training for this career was going to as many gigs as possible.
Newton remembers a core group of cash-strapped mates who would sneak into The Club, on Smith St in Collingwood, to see up-and-coming acts.
“We would climb up the back of this terrace house, walk over the roof and jump this gap, which was ridiculous, on to the roof of The Club, and climb down this drain pipe to the back exit stairs of the second storey,” he said.
Newton told that story years later to the man who owned the club in those days – Bob ‘Bongo’ Starkie from the Skyhooks.
“He said ‘f---, was that you stomping around on the roof?’,” Newton said with a laugh.
“He said ‘I knew you guys were doing that but I didn’t care because you came in and drank a lot, and if you were that committed, you were OK’.”
No more ironing shirts
Before joining the music industry Newton worked in public relations, which he hated and described as “just a suit and tie job”.
At that time he was hitting live music venues hard on weekends – a pursuit that would lead to an inevitable clash of cultures.
“It’s just the wrong place to be on a Monday morning, I’d be ironing my shirt trying to get my s--t together to go to work in an office,” he said.
As a side gig he managed small bands and got a meeting at Premier Artists – the only big agency at that time – to pitch a demo.
“I walked in and it was just alive,” he said.
“Everyone was yelling, you could smell pot, they had a listing of who they represented on the board at the front, and it was all the bands that I used to go see.”
From that point he was hooked, and after starting a job as a poster boy in 1988 he stayed for a decade, soaking up lessons from industry kingpins such as Gudinski, Frank Stivala, and Gerard Schlaghecke – now at Frontier Touring.
“I’ve always been really lucky in my career that I’ve always had good people around me, we still do to this day,” Newton said.
“Anyone that I think has any modicum of success in any business, there’s always been people around you that help you with a vision, or to execute something, or get a deal done.”
Newton was fortunate to have had a “really beautiful heart to heart” with Gudinski to tell him about the profound impact he had had on his life, shortly before the industry icon died in 2021.
“People often take things for granted, and you don’t always get a chance to tell someone else how much they mean to you. If my 20-year-old self had thought I would be in business with Michael, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said.
He met wife Anthea, from whom he recently separated, when she was Gudinski’s first full-time publicist and Newton was at Premier Artists.
As his booking sheet grew, Newton and Anthea set up a live music event at the St Kilda Bowling Club that started as a benefit featuring up-and-comers the Dirty Three.
It became a local institution until a group of French Petanque players revolted and “got the numbers” on the board.
It was an important lesson in stakeholder management the couple would heed when they established A Day On The Green a few years later.
The grass is always greener
When the Newtons came up with the concept of open-air festivals at wineries, they had some of their clients in mind.
“Some of my artists were a little bit older or straighter, and they couldn’t get on any festival,” Newton said.
The plan was for contemporary music to be enjoyed outdoors with friends, and that you could bring your own food.
“We had already cottoned on to the winery (venue) idea, we decided not to do botanical gardens or parks where you could step in dog s--t or people kick a footy,” he said.
“We wanted a little bit of a destination, a bit more of a romanticism around it.
“And we spend on staging and production – Michael used to say we are Qantas business class, the others are Jetstar.”
Anthea’s brother Johnny came up with the name, while the first show in Mornington, effectively organised from their Elwood home, saw 1800 people entertained by James Morrison, Renée Geyer, Stephen Cummings, Rebecca Barnard and Shane O’Mara.
After the first two events, which Gudinski attended, the Mushroom Group became an official partner.
Newton said he now enjoyed working with current CEO Matt Gudinski who is observant and very considered “but still has the insights of his dad”.
As the event’s popularity grew so did the artists; from Elton John to Fleetwood Mac.
Jimmy Barnes has performed 44 times – with Cold Chisel or as a solo act.
Newton said some of the bigger challenges are the number of stakeholders to wrangle, and the weather.
“Our 500th show was Crowded House – we had so much rain, it was when the floods were happening,” he said.
A control room with a team of experts, including emergency services and insurance specialists, gave the show the green light despite it ending up in a muddy mess.
Newton said those crews were integral to each performance and the fact that his team was able to get buy-in from regional centres to make the event a success helped ensure “everyone’s having a drink from it”.
Scorching summers roll on
At Step Beach near Jan Juc on Victoria’s surf coast, Newton feels at peace.
“That’s one of my favourite parts of the coast, you don’t see any cars, it’s just cliffs and you’re out in the elements,” he said.
“I sort of base my life around the ocean, really.”
After decades in the moshpit of Melbourne’s music industry, Newton said he is now after a more “simple, calm life”.
“We used to party our arses off, it was full-on,” he said.
“By my own admission I went hard for a while and I wasn’t at my best.”
The Covid-19 pandemic, which hit the business hard and smashed the industry, forced Newton to rest and reset for one of the first times in his life.
He describes himself as “obsessive”; the A Day On The Green team used to check event sites meticulously, down to the position of wheelie bins.
Growing the business at that time was a struggle that “seemed like those cartoons where the steps of the ladder keep disappearing below as you climb”.
Family holidays with the couple’s two children – Goldie is now 26 and Darcy 23 – were often interrupted by work and Newton said the relentlessness eventually took a toll.
Success was established, however, and a long run of scorching summer events now beckon.
Although rising costs are always a concern, including a global live music insurance crisis and the fact that public holiday rates for security staff are almost $100 an hour, Newton said his company Roundhouse Entertainment was “playing the long game” and governments contributing cash through funds such as Always Live was providing renewed optimism.
“We haven’t had any Always Live money yet but it’s a reflection of how important live music is to the economy,” he said.
This season may feature global giants such as Robbie Williams and the Chemical Brothers but Newton, always the canny promoter, gives tantalising hints of bigger things to come.
“The summer after, it’s looking like being potentially one of our biggest summers ever, the way it’s shaping.”
Q&A with Michael Newton
First job (and pay)?
First real job was in a PR consultancy as a junior consultant on about 30k a year.
If you weren’t doing this job, what would you be doing?
Struggling!
Five people you’d invite to a dinner party (dead or alive)
My 2 kids Goldie and Darcy (I always like seeing them), Allah, Jesus, Muhammed so they can tell their people to forgive each other and get along.
Book everyone should read
I love Paul Auster as a writer. Start with “New York Trilogy”.
If you could live anywhere in the world besides here, where would it be
The Surf Coast is hard to beat but I love Pottsville on the north coast of NSW. Very laidback, nice people, good weather and warm water.
First concert, dream concert (dead or alive)
First proper one was Talking Heads at the old Entertainment Centre. Maybe 1979. That’s not counting a few shows on the outside of the fence at the Music Bowl drinking Stone’s Ginger Wine. (AC/DC, ELO, The Beach Boys, Neil Young)
Dream concert – I never got to see Tom Petty.
Most inspirational living person
The Dalai Lama.
What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Let go and enjoy the ride.
First car, current car, dream car
Magnificent 2-tone brown HG Holden Wagon with bucket seats.
Current – converted VW Transporter Camper
Dream – the current car. Drives great and is a home on wheels
One thing people didn’t know about you/hidden talent
It will remain hidden!
Best and worst birthday present you’ve ever received
Best: A David Bromley statue
There can’t be a worst.
Rainy day TV binge
Ray Donovan, Peaky Blinders, or SBS has so many hidden gems.
Song you get pumped up to
Most Stooges songs.
Death row last meal
Really good porridge with the right ingredients.
Biggest career regret
Me getting in the way.
Best piece of advice you’ve received
You have to enjoy what you do, then it’s not work.
This year I’m most looking forward to …
Putting on shows with my awesome team of people. Their hearts are in it and it’s very rewarding.
The one thing I’d love to change about Victoria/Victorians
The traffic is getting crazy so better public transport and roads.
The one thing I love the most about Victoria/Victorians
Our passion for attending live music and sport.
Also, public radio – they should get more funding.
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