Tamworth Country Music Festival 2023
Thousands of people converge every year for this thoroughly country-style festival with something for every genre.
Bill Kearns has the audience at Tamworth’s Longyard Hotel eating out of his hand. It’s 8am on Sunday on the first weekend of the annual country music festival but the crowd, which could respectfully be described as mature, is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Kearns’s face may be lined and his beard grey but his bush poetry takes a decidedly 21st-century slant.
There are no roaming drovers, cracks gathered to the fray, or swagmen camping by billabongs. Instead, his yarns describe senior citizens fighting over a meat raffle, and an amorous couple covered in body piercings getting caught by their short and curlies. There’s grandma warning her granddaughter against tattoos, pointing to the dove that once graced her right breast that now resembles “a dead fruit bat” near her right hip. And I learn the word “farmer” is a good match for “marijuana”. Then, as if the art of bush poetry hasn’t been sufficiently turned on its head, a 15-year-old lad comes on stage and starts reciting Mulga Bill’s Bicycle. What would Banjo think of this topsy-turvy approach?
There are actual banjoes on the footpaths of Peel St, the main thoroughfare through town. Spectators gather around the two Butler brothers pumping out twangy versions of the likes of Talking Heads and The Romantics. In a pub, a band is performing AC/DC with gusto while other buskers struggle to make their folksy tunes heard above the din. Who said country music was all rings of fire, Wichita linemen and pubs with no beer? This is surely one of the reasons thousands of people have been converging on this town in northeast NSW for 51 years. You don’t need to be devoted to “both kinds of music”, country and western; there’s a genre for everyone.
I grab a bite to eat at the Tamworth Hotel, where an alt-country four-piece fronted by charismatic lead singer Matt Joe Gow in aviator sunglasses, singlet and cowboy hat is revving up patrons in the beer garden. Strolling down the road, I stumble upon The Welder’s Dog craft brewery, where a fiddler and guitarist are stomping up a storm. There is music, and extraordinary talent, at every turn.
My visit coincides with the Toyota Starmaker event, which has launched the careers of Keith Urban and Lee Kernaghan, among others. Ten talented singers, songwriters and musicians are in the running for a prize that includes a trip to Nashville, two guitars, an EP recording deal plus the opportunity to play gigs around the country. Oh, and they get use of a brand new Toyota vehicle and fuel card for a year. After a solid 31 years supporting the festival, the car maker’s branding is everywhere, which is hardly surprising given the abundance of dusty, bull-barred Land Cruisers and HiLuxes in these parts. I’ve been offered use of a hybrid Corolla Cross for the four-hour trip north from Sydney. It seems a rather urbane departure from the rugged vehicles that dominate the region, but when I accidentally take the tradesmen’s entrance to my accommodation and have to ford a shallow creek, it does its 4WD cousins proud.
Goonoo Goonoo Station, a vast property on the Liverpool Plains about 20 minutes south of Tamworth, was once the headquarters of the Australian Agricultural Company, a pioneering initiative begun in the 1820s. Its aim was to curb the spread of squatters and to fill colonial coffers with the proceeds of exporting merino wool to Britain. It spanned more than 230,000ha across pastoral lands near Tamworth and further south at Willow Tree. By 1839, the AACo employed about 500 men, including 400 convicts, and could push 3000 sheep a day through its shearing shed at Goonoo Goonoo.
Since 2011, the heritage-listed property has been in the hands of the Haggarty family, who set about restoring its buildings, opening a wedding and accommodation venue in 2017. Up to 76 guests can stay in the various buildings dotted across the acreage. There’s the church and adjacent schoolhouse, now used as a bridal suite. The reception is in a bluestone affair that once served as general store and post office, with the butcher around the back. Cobb and Co rested its horses and customers at The Inn, now a two-bedroom retreat.
The main homestead is in an impressive Georgian manor, with two wings added later to its original footprint, along with a private swimming pool, barbecue area and manicured gardens. It can accommodate up to 10 people. I’m staying in the more modest yet equally stylish Shearer’s Quarters, a row of neat suites hidden behind the peeling paint of corrugated iron walls. These are chic, air-conditioned lodgings in an inviting palette of white, cream and sage, where coarsely hewn roof beams from the 19th century are juxtaposed with crisply dressed king beds, spacious ensuites and smart TVs.
Meals are served in the acclaimed Glasshouse, a short stroll uphill past towering old gum trees, rows of flowering oleander and tidy plots of cactus and hardy natives. Keep an eye out – in summer you might even spot a sleepy black snake soaking up the sun on the lawn. The restaurant stands on the site of the shearing sheds and adjoins the old wool store. It’s a gorgeous piece of architecture marrying old and new. Near the entrance is a hefty wall of railway sleepers, while inside are timber-lined ceilings, polished concrete floors, tan leather seats and enormous walls of glass that look out over rolling pastures.
Goonoo Goonoo is a breath of fresh air for anyone weary of city life. During my visit, skies are big and blue, swept with slow-moving clouds. The air sparks with the song of budgerigars, parrots and magpies accompanied by the gentle lowing of cattle. But it’s a different kind of music I’m here for.
At the Starmaker concert in Tamworth’s Bicentennial Park, American cowboy boots easily outnumber their Blundstone and RM Williams counterparts. Most of the singers adopt a southern drawl as they strum guitars and entertain the large crowd, vying to impress the judges with their considerable skills. In the end, though, it’s a resoundingly Australian result. Gamilaraay woman Loren Ryan, playing to a home crowd, takes the gong. She’ll be back again next year to pass on the baton. I might be too.
In the know
The Toyota Tamworth Country Music Festival runs from January 19-28 next year. Accommodation at Goonoo Goonoo Station ranges from $175 a night in the Shearer’s Quarters to $1250 a night in the Homestead (sleeps 10); two-night minimum for cottages and Homestead.
Penny Hunter was a guest of Toyota Australia.