Red desert rocks to primal beat as Midnight Oil delivers with power and passion
The Big Red Bash was in perfect harmony with its rugged surroundings.
Earlier this week, thousands of people directed their four-wheel drives towards a barren lake bed in western Queensland in search of an adventure and a break from the predictable drumbeat of daily life.
The lure was a rare trip into the desert married with the primal power of rock ’n’ roll.
“It’s like you live on another planet,” said Shae Strong, who travelled to the Big Red Bash music festival, near Birdsville, from the Sunshine Coast with her husband and three daughters.
“A lot of people have gone to a lot of effort to be here, so the energy is great.
“It’s a beautiful family vibe.”
Most people at the three-day festival had travelled from the east coast and, for many, the lack of phone and internet services was a welcome change.
“It’s been a really blessed opportunity (to be) away from all of that; it’s escapism at its best,” Ms Strong said.
“It’s a once-in-a-life adventure to have with your family. Our daughters are three, six and nine, and I think they’re pretty blown away by the experience.”
On Thursday afternoon, Sydney rock act Midnight Oil began the festival’s final performance as the sun set behind a sand dune known as Big Red.
The quintet opened with The Dead Heart and played most of the songs from its desert-inspired 1987 album Diesel & Dust.
Seven songs in to the set, singer Peter Garrett exhibited perfect timing by announcing Stars of Warburton just as the sun sank out of sight and pinpricks of light appeared overhead. There had been plenty of anticipation about Midnight Oil’s appearance, and the group exceeded all expectations by delivering a monumental show spanning 26 songs and nearly four decades of its recording history.
Fittingly, the final encore was One Country, a song of inclusion and community that felt at home in this unusual setting that continues to bring strangers together each winter.
With a couple of friends, Ursula Ogilvie drove from her home on the Gold Coast to out past Birdsville, the tiny town nearest to Big Red where the festival site was assembled during the past month. “Getting away from the coastline is really beautiful,” she said.
“A lot of people here live on the beach, so they want to have a contrast to their natural environment. We can take a little piece of this away with us, to learn to disconnect to reconnect.”
Event director Lucas Trihey has seen the Bash grow from a gathering of 500 people watching John Williamson play atop Big Red in 2013 to become a pop-up town of about 10,000.
“What we learned very early on was a really important thing: if they’ve got good food, good toilets and plenty of entertainment, they’re the happiest campers in the world,” he said. “We’re very strong on our messaging to leave no trace, and when these campers leave, there’s almost nothing left.
“In a week it’ll be completely bare, other than for a few footprints — and if you came by in a couple of months, you wouldn’t even know it had happened.”
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