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Until January 24 and 25, 1970, Ourimbah was identified primarily as a small township and suburb of New South Wales, simply north of Sydney in Australia. Then its identify turned synonymous with trendy music tradition, because it hosted the nation’s first main, out of doors rock pageant.
Staged just some months after the era-defining Woodstock Festival, the Pilgrimage for Pop was organised by the Sydney-based rock outfit of the time, the Nutwood Rug Band, who additionally opened the present. It passed off on the farm of Lt Colonel Henry Nicholls, and historical past information that the organisers despatched an invite to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which they reportedly obtained after the occasion.
The invoice featured the highest names on Australia’s underground rock scene, together with Sydney’s Tamam Shud, Levi Smith Clefs, Doug Parkinson In Focus, Tully and Rachette, the band fashioned by Stevie Wright after the demise of the Easybeats. They had been alongside Melbourne’s Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Wendy Saddington, and Leo De Castro and Friends. The opening day’s festivities passed off as temperatures raced to 85ºF (28ºC), encouraging at the least one feminine fan to take away her shirt to bounce. “Topless Pop!”, ran one newspaper report.
Straights and hippies grooving as one
Adrian Simpson, who was on the pageant, later wrote in a weblog: “As a budding rock musician, I used the pageant to search out out for myself how skilled gamers operated – the best way they labored the group, their set lists and so forth. We all, short-haired ‘straights’ like me and the long-haired, blissed-out hippies grooved to the unimaginable sounds happening.
“Woodstock? Who cared about Woodstock when this was happening, man, right in front of our hastily-pitched tents! I would say Jeff St John & Copperwine took the honours as the best act over the weekend, but Billy and his Aztecs were not far behind.”
On the second day, proceedings concluded at a civilized 4pm with one other look by the Nutwood Rug Band. Only 30 or so arrests had been recorded for minor offences, prompting Sydney Sun columnist Keith Willey to jot down: “For once the hippies lived up to their reputation for gentleness.” The Pilgrimage For Pop had taken its place in historical past.