Summer sounds

My love affair with music festivals dates back to the summer of 1980 and the first Sweetwaters held on a farm just out of Ngaruawahia in the Waikato. I attended that first one as a punter and from ’81 through to the last Sweetwaters in ‘84 I was there in my capacity as a band manager or record label rep.

Things were more primitive back in the day and the festival experience was very different: we travelled to the site on metal roads, bottled water was unheard of, coffee was instant, everything was paid for in cash, telephones certainly weren’t mobile and we took photographs with cameras that had rolls of film in them!

In 1982 Sweetwaters moved to a new site at Pukekawa, where the last festival was held in 1984. Along with Talking Heads and The Eurythmics, The Pretenders and Simple Minds performed that year. Jim Kerr (Simple Minds) and Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) hit it off on site, a romance blossomed and they were eventually to wed. Like most celebrity marriages it didn’t last.

Music festivals come and go too, but some become established and last for years. The Big Day Out (BDO) was one of those. It was different from other festivals, in that it was held in an urban environment, had multiple stages and was over and done in a day. I attended all 18 BDOs, either working or just enjoying.

There may be no BDO this summer, but as festival goers we are spoiled for choice, whether it be Rhythm and Vines, Laneway, WOMAD, Splore, Luminate, or any of the others on offer, every taste is covered. I will be at Laneways. I may be older and greyer than I was at that first Sweetwaters, but I still love music.