THE MUSIC FESTIVAL

By Al Gallo

Sunday, 24 June 2007.

Most of us heard the night-and-day percussion sound in Mount Garnet during the last weekend, and still don’t know exactly how the event took place so unexpectedly. No posters were placed at the Post Office or at McDonald Bros supermarket or at our web site, for that matter. The only indication that something was about to take place was a ‘festival’ sign at the corner of Warruma Swamp Rd, as well as an arrow further down pointing to a private property situated behind Garnet hill.

It all started on the Friday and followed non-stop till Monday, spreading deep sound waves at over 100 beats per minute and a flock of young, well mannered people happily shopping around town. Some of them let us know they’d come to Mount Garnet to ‘the’ music festival. What kind of music festival? It stirred my curiosity and I was considering to turn up at the venue to learn about it and write a note for our web site. I was discouraged to do so when I was told the price of the entry ticket was $120.

A search on the Internet led me to a ticket-sales site promoting the event at the Misty Mountains area of Ravenshoe. Further search revealed that another ticket-sales web site, Green Tix, was promoting a ‘Winter Solstice Celebration & Lifestyle Gathering’ in Mount Garnet during the same period. It seems obvious the first venue was for some reason, dismissed in favour of our town.

What appeared as the presenter was ‘Freeform Collective’, which provided an email address. I sent an email last Sunday asking for some information regarding the event and its organizer, but I haven’t received so far any reply.

Freeform Collective as a name seems to be related to ‘Freeform Hardcore’, name given to a dance by British disc jockey Jonathan Kneath, known as DJ Sharkey in 1999. At the same time, DJ Sharkey was a member of the group Nu Energy Collective.

This music is purely an electronic variety called atonal, which means it lacks keys and the tonality characteristic of the traditional forms. It’s worth mentioning that ‘hardcore’ appeared simultaneously during the early 1990s in New York (US) Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Newcastle (Australia).