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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-22 Daily Xml
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ADELAIDE INTERNATIONAL GUITAR FESTIVAL

Ms SIMMONS (Morialta) (14:13): Can the Premier tell the chamber about the Guinness world—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Morialta has the call.

Ms SIMMONS: Thank you, sir.

Members interjecting:

Ms SIMMONS: I am just waiting for quiet. Don't forget I used to be a headmistress. Can the Premier tell the chamber about the Guinness world record attempt to take place tomorrow evening, and what this attempt marks the beginning of?

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:14): On the eve of a federal election we are dealing with these kinds of issues, because the arts is important in this election campaign. I am pleased that tomorrow night I will open the International Guitar Festival. Tomorrow night, as the honourable member has mentioned, there will be an attempt to break the Guinness world record for the biggest guitar band. It will mark the opening of Adelaide's very own inaugural International Guitar Festival in which, of course, we have involved the New York Guitar Festival. I should say, because I do not want to be accused of any conflicts of interest, that I once played air guitar for Glenn Shorrock. It was following a Clipsal 500—

The Hon. S.W. Key: Little River Band?

The Hon. M.D. RANN: No, it was not for Little River Band: it was more a solo performance of Sunshine of My Life—and I know that Glenn Shorrock appreciated the assistance I gave him. Going back to the Guinness world record for the biggest guitar band, the current record—held by India—is for 1,730 guitars playing at once. We will try to hit 2,000, but I want to make it nigh on impossible for anyone else to beat our record. Can members imagine—and I ask the Leader of the Opposition, who I know is a great supporter of the arts to consider this—and if you look at the member for MacKillop, it is quite clear that he is making an artistic statement today, and I salute him. It looks like a scene from Purple Haze!

I ask all members of parliament to consider this. Can they imagine 2,000 guitarists playing Smoke on the Water together at Elder Park? I can, and I just cannot wait. I am using the parliament of South Australia to call on all those guitar enthusiasts in the chamber—and I know there is a number of them—and in the galleries, if any of those young people are young guitar players or maybe even ukulele players, please be involved: download the tune for practice and register to be part of the fun at www.adelaideguitarfestival.com.au.

Members can also pick up a registration form from a BASS outlet or, on the day, from 4pm at Elder Park—so do not forget your guitar. A band called Special Patrol will then play a free concert until 6.40pm to help us celebrate. The Adelaide International Guitar Festival, the first of Adelaide's many festivals over summer and autumn, opens tomorrow night and runs to 2 December. It will feature more than 70 artists performing in 40 concerts over 10 magnificent days and nights of musical treats. It is the largest of its kind in the world—and I am told even larger than its sister festival in New York City—with a superb line-up of local, national and international talent.

Many of those acts will take part in collaborations that have not been seen anywhere else in the world. The festival will showcase the broad range of guitar genres—is that right, Chloe—including rock and jazz, blues and classical, flamenco, experimental, gospel and world music. As part of the extensive program, there will be five outdoor concerts in Elder Park featuring multiple artist line-ups and the very best guitar music that the world has to offer:

the first of these, the Rips & Riffs concert, will cover the rich history of Australian surf music, and it will feature The Atlantics, Richard Clapton and champion surfer Beau Young—that will be of particular interest, I think, to the Deputy Premier;

On the Verge—the 21st Century Guitar will take a look at where guitar music is heading, with guitarists David Linley, Kaki King and Vernon Reid;

the line-up for the concert Slideshow—Masters of the Slide Guitar is a rollcall of the world's best, including Bob Brozman, Cindy Cashdollar and Lucky Oceans;

Culture of Kings—a Blues Story will showcase where rock music was born and feature Grammy Award winner John Hammond Jr (who has shared the stage with John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, G-Love and Muddy Waters), plus Australia's queen of the blues, Fiona Boyes; and

the penultimate—I know that certainly members on this side of the house will be there and I suspect the member for MacKillop—audiences will be able to unleash their the inner rock star at the concert Kiss the Sky—A Tribute to the Music of Jimi Hendrix, which will serve as the electric finale to this year's guitar festival. (I often play Jimi Hendrix music in the car prior to giving a major speech.)

Children aged 12 and under are admitted to Elder Park performances for free, with a paying adult. Each night of the festival will culminate in a late-night session by selected artists and musicians in the Wah-Bar. There will also be a free foyer program of music with a good mix of local and interstate artists to build a festival atmosphere. This will be complemented by visual art displays featuring the art of Reg Mombasa, a photographic exhibition with shots of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash, and a display taking us on a historic journey through the evolution of the guitar over the past century. There are films, artists' talks, forum discussions, master classes, seminars and workshops aimed at making as many of the artists as possible accessible to interested audiences.

We have the star of Jefferson Airplane, for those of us who remember. Certainly the minister for Health remembers this. I have been to parties at his place in the 1980s where Jefferson Airplane and the music of San Francisco in the late 1960s featured. Also, there will be the person who taught Bob Marley to play the guitar, so I look forward to seeing him. I know that in this government some of us are more WOMAD and others more—

The Hon. K.O. Foley: Bruce Springsteen-like.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —more Bruce Springsteen-like or, in the case of the Minister for Infrastructure, The Seekers.

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