Myponga Music Festival - 1971

Aproxiamtely 10,000 music fans went to the Myponga Music Festival which took place near Myponga, South Australia from 30 January to 1 February 1971.

It was held on a dairy farm on a hot summer's long weekend in January 1971. In the quiet, sleepy town of Myponga south of Adelaide, thousands of music fans turned out for a three day long rock music festival that they say changed the Australian music scene forever.

Music Power presents at Myponga, South Australia the first Australian Festival of Progressive Music. The promoters believe that in keeping with world trends of freedom of expression and thought in all fields of art, literature and music, Myponga 71 will be an exciting, aesthetic and elevating experience through progressive music.

Bands

South Australian acts that performed included Fraternity, Moonshine Jug and String Band (later The Angels), War Machine, Fat Angel and Uncle Jack.

Interstate acts included Daddy Cool, Spectrum, Chain, and Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. Headlining the show was Black Sabbath from England in their first ever Australian show.

Black Sabbath
Fraternity
Daddy Cool
Billy Thorpe And The Aztecs
Spectrum
Jeff St John And The Copper Wine
Fanny Adams
Company Caine
Chain
Syrius
Healing Force
Hans Poulsen
Lotus
Black Fire
Geoff Krozier's Magic Freaks
Margret Roadknight
Moonshine Jug And String Band
Fat Angel
Adrian Rawlins

Importance

The first Australian Festival of Progressive Music

The promoters believe that in keeping with world trends of freedom of expression and thought in all fields of art, literature and music, Myponga 71 will be an exciting, aesthetic and elevating experience through progressive music.".

It was staged one week after the Wallacia Festival in NSW and many of the acts who played at Myponga had come direct from performing at Wallacia.

The Myponga festival was important for several reasons. Myponga was the venue for the first Australian performance by leading British heavy rock group Black Sabbath and it is believed to have hosted the Australian first performances by visiting Hungarian jazz-rock group Syrius, which featured the late Jackie Orszaczky.

Black Sabbath was then at the peak of their form, the band turned in a fine performance and it is reputed to have been by far the best of their several Australian appearances. The other major overseas act scheduled was Cat Stevens, but his appearance was cancelled just before the festival began. Stevens eventually toured Australia for Paul Dainty in August-September 1972.

Myponga was also an important event in the careers of two leading Australian groups -- Daddy Cool and Spectrum.

Spectrum's successful appearance was some months before their national hit breakout with "I'll Be Gone", and according to Adrian Rawlins, they played a very impressive set.

The same was true for Daddy Cool, which at the time was still part of Wilson and Hannaford's larger Sons of the Vegetal Mother project. DC had been warmly received at Wallacia and when their Myponga set totally eclipsed the Vegetals it was clear that Daddy Cool were far more popular than their parent band, so Sons of the Vegetal Mother was soon shelved for good. Filmmaker Chris Lofven was on hand with a movie camera to capture some of the DC set and this footage (often mistakenly thought to be from Sunbury) eventually found its way into Chris' landmark film-clip for Daddy Cool's debut smash-hit single Eagle Rock.

Festival Name

Myponga Festival - The Australian Festival of Progressive Music
Myponga Music Festival + Myponga Pop Festival

The Myponga Festival -- its proper title was "The Australian Festival of Progressive Music" -- was held on the traditional festival date, the Australia Day long weekend, from 30 January to 1 February.

Wikipedia

The main figure in the festival organising company, Music Power, was Hamish Henry, a young Adelaide millionaire entrepreneur who had a continuing involvement with rock music in the early '70s.

As well as organising the Myponga festival, Henry managed several of the headlining local bands, War Machine and two other Adelaide groups, Headband and Fraternity.

Trevor Brine was the festival's booker and artist liaison and Alex Innocenti sold some tickets through his Blues Cellar and assisted Trevor.

The festival was headlined by heavy metal pioneers, Black Sabbath. Cat Stevens was advertised as co-headline artist at the festival but he cancelled to perform in Los Angeles.

The compere was Adrian Rawlins, who wrote of his experiences at Myponga, and other festivals, in his book Festivals in Australia: an Intimate History (1982). Another international act was Syrius, (from Hungary, see Jackie Orszaczky).

Alex Innocenti tells a tale that perfectly illustrates Hamish Henry's desire to fund the venture at any cost:

"We went down to the farm at Myponga in Hamish's great American sports car with no roof, like movie stars," he recalls. "The farmer says, `What do you guys want?' and Hamish says, `I want to buy your farm.' He gave him a $1 deposit and paid him the next week." Innocenti says he has no idea what's happened to Henry.

Australian artists included Daddy Cool, Spectrum, Fraternity, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Fanny Adams, Jeff St John's Copperwine with Wendy Saddington, Company Caine and Chain; South Australian artists included Steve Foster.

The Canberra Times' correspondent reported that the "festival rocked to a close tonight after taking 1 1⁄2 days to warm up.
The pop crowd, estimated at 8,000, started arriving at the 62-acre farm at Myponga early on Saturday morning. Most of them had brought plenty of alcohol and, although violence did not erupt, the atmosphere at the festival was tense at times." The promoters did not make any profit.

Author Clinton Walker in his book 'Highway to Hell: The life and death of Bon Scott' described the Myponga Festival: "With a bill boasting an exclusive appearance by Black Sabbath as well as the cream of Australia's progressive bands, Myponga - bankrolled by Hamish Henry was the biggest thing to hit Adelaide since the Beatles..."

In March 2013 Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne recalled the group's debut Australian performance, "That was the Myponga Pop Festival if I remember right? Management told us we'd have an exact copy of our amplifiers there, which we thought was great, but when we got there they were nothing like our amplifiers! But you know what? You get up there and do your best and I had a good time. I remember we had a big party at the hotel and some chicks there got absolutely shit-faced and were throwing up everywhere and we had to send them home. I don't remember much on the sex front after that

A Facebook pages celebrates the historical Myponga Music Festival.

The town of Myponga is situated on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula, about 60 kilometres south of Adelaide. Prior to the staging of the Myponga Festival in 1971, the town's main claim to fame was the 1953 discovery of a uranium ore deposit at Wild Dog Hill, just outside the township and between 1953 and 1955, small quantities of uranium ore were obtained from the site. The Myponga area was chiefly known for dairy farming.