Woodford Festival

Festival Location: Woodford, QLD, Australia

Festival Type(s): Folk Festivals, Folk Music Festivals, World Music Festivals

Woodford Festival Media:

Woodford Festival (and a bit more)

by © Alan Dearling 2009

Just over an hour's travel from Brisbane, the Woodford festival runs each year from Boxing Day to the 2nd January. Although it is mid-summer in Oz at that time of year, it can rain. "You ain't seen nothing, mate, it's real okker rainfall." So, for the second year in a row, the 2000/2001 event had a few days of Glasto-like mud bathing - but at least it was hot, well into the upper 20 degrees centigrade. Over the long week, up to 100,000 people can attend, with many just popping in on a day pass. The site is pretty awesome, with permanent loos and showers, all set in a beautiful valley. But, it's not cheap - over $250 this year (about £100) for a season pass with camping. (Tel: 07 5496 1066 E-mail: qff@woodfordfolkfestival.com)

The event is a complex and heady mix of music - folk, blues, tribal and world - oodles of street performers too. This is complemented literally hundreds of talks, poetry, alto comedy, demonstrations and hands-on craft and arts workshops. There's also an impressive Murri (Aboriginal) presence, with their own corroboree grounds within the main festival. It all culminates in a huge fire festival on the night of New Year's Day. Within the event there's a strong environmental input: lots of talks on sustainability, ecology, communes and intentional communities, but sadly no alternative power sources, which compared with the Big Green events in the UK, struck me as peculiar.

Many of the performers will not be familiar to UK audiences, but the calibre is well equal to the UK crop of talent. Some, like Christine Anu, are already known internationally, others like Jeff Lang, with his virtuoso finger picking, and the John Butler Trio and their powerhouse eco-blues style, should soon become 'names' worldwide. If that's what they want, of course.

I was invited to attend, with a free ticket and a guest tent, in the performers' area. My 'performance' was to talk about my book, Alternative Australia-celebrating cultural diversity and show videos about the eclectic mix of contributors. It's a hard book to describe, but its fifty-plus contributors span everything from communal living to raves, alternative arts and poetry to sound systems and full-on eco-protests. Well known veteran Aussie, Daevid Allen (of Gong fame) gets his chance to pour vitriol on 'the ordinary Australian' and then there' Orryelle Defenestrate from leftfield performers, the Mutation Parlour! The films I showed focused on how young people in Australia are becoming very tribal through body piercings, tattoos, mind-altering drugs and shamanistic rituals. Very prevalent at Woodford, too! I was also able to meet a number of eco-dwellers who are contributing to a new book for publication in 2002, on eco-dwellings worldwide and the lifestyles of their builders. Everything from modern eco-nomads to low-impact mud and straw-bale houses.

Anyway, with Woodford I've notched up another festival experience, which I will certainly remember for many years to come. Try it. Escape the winter gloom, if not always the rain!

(The book, Alternative Australia, is available, price £13.95 plus £2.50 p&p from Enabler Publications, 3 Russell House, Lym Close, Lyme Regis, Dorset DT7 3DE. E-mail: adearling@aol.com)

by Alan Dearling

Woodford Festival Photos: