AFTER nearly a year of planning and preparation, the Kidgeeridge Music Festival is all set to light up this weekend as an amazing array of music stars shine.
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The final Kidgeeridge Music Festival to be held at Graham and Vicki White’s farm beside Lake Conjola has attracted some of the biggest music names from across Australia to entertain the sell-out crowd.
While the festival is officially a sell-out, there is always the chance of a last-minute cancellation, and to check for any tickets contact Graham on 0410 541 533.
The festival this year is headed by the biggest name in Australian country music, Troy Cassar-Daley.
He is the winner of four ARIA awards, 25 Golden Guitars during the Tamworth Country Music Festival, two APRA country song of the year awards, eight Deadly Awards handed out to be nation’s best indigenous entertainers and four CMAA Entertainer of the Year awards.
Also on the bill is former Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock frontman Ross Wilson, who has also enjoyed tremendous success as a solo performer.
As if those two legends of Australian music are not enough, throw into the mix John Schumann, who is one of the few songwriters who have changed the way a nation thinks.
Best known for his leadership of the legendary folk-rock band Redgum, and his Vietnam veterans’ anthem, “I was only 19”, Schumann first came to national attention in 1980 as Redgum’s lead singer-songwriter.
In the ensuing years Schumann recorded nine albums and, with Redgum, toured the UK, Europe and Ireland where his songs are still played.
Then you have former Cold Chisel member Don Walker, who wrote many of Chisel’s greatest hits.
He played piano and keyboard with Cold Chisel until the band broke up, and has since continued to record and perform as a solo artist, write songs and even write books.
Richard Clapton described Walker as, “the most Australian writer there has ever been. Don just digs being a sort of beat poet, who goes around observing, especially around the streets of Kings Cross. He soaks it up like a sponge and articulates it so well. Quite frankly, I think he’s better than the rest of us.”
The Kidgeeridge Music Festival always enjoys a hearty dose of blues, and this year is no exception with a performance by Australian blues guitarist and singer, Fiona Boyes.
The internationally recognised and awarded recording and touring artist has been variously described by reviewers as a ‘musical anomaly’, ‘Bonnie Raitt’s evil twin’, or simply as ‘scaring the hell out of me’.
There is also Joe Louis Walker, who is among the greatest bluesmen of his generation.
The American is known worldwide as one of the genre’s top musical trailblazers — a mesmerising guitarist and soul-testifying vocalist.
For something different there is folk-pop duo Busby Marou, rising Australian country act the Adam Eckersley Band, Texas ex-pat Doug Bruce with his band The Tailgaters, and much more.
There will even be a traditional welcome to the region performed by Aboriginal elder Noel Butler.
The music kicks off Friday evening and continues into the night, then all through Saturday, with profits donated to local charities.
While most of the festival-goers are camping, a bus is taking patrons to and from the Kidgeeridge property on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday it will collect people on the Princes Highway beside the Burrill Lake shops at 4pm, the Ulladulla Civic Centre at 4.05pm, the church in Milton opposite the IGA at 4.10pm, the Lake Conjola turnoff at 4.15pm, and the Fisherman’s Paradise turnoff at 4.20pm, before the festival starts at 5.30pm.
On Saturday it will collect patrons at the Burrill Lake shops at 10.30am, the Ulladulla Civic Centre at 10.45am, the church in Milton opposite the IGA at 10.50am, the Lake Conjola turnoff at 10.55am, and the Fisherman’s Paradise turnoff at 10.57am, before the festival starts at 11am.
On both nights the bus will leave the festival for the return trip at 11.30pm.