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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-28 Daily Xml
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GORGEOUS FESTIVAL

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:16): I rise today to commend the organisers of the Gorgeous Festival which was held in McLaren Vale on Saturday, and in particular, the festival directors, Sally and Alistair Cranney, who have done a tremendous job. Last year was the first Gorgeous Festival and Icehouse were the top bill at that concert. We have seen it grow. This year, we had almost a sellout crowd. There is capacity for 3,000 people there and there were 2,800 tickets.

Missy Higgins headlined this year's concert and it was fantastic. She was really well supported by Dan Sultan, another great Aussie singer, as well as Gossling, the Preatures, and Butterfly Boucher, who is a very good Adelaide performer. She produced the album for Missy Higgins and of course it is Missy Higgins' first album in five years. She has taken a bit of a break and now she has come back to music with a new album which has some great hits on it. Hayden Calnin and Johnny McIntyre were also on the main stage.

We saw side stages as well with great local acts but we also celebrated the other great things about McLaren Vale, and they are food and wine. I really want to commend the organisers once again, Alistair and Sally, for really going after local producers and making sure they were showcased there as part of the festival. That was something that was done quite deliberately.

I know that the local restaurants—d'Arry's Verandah Restaurant, The Elbow Room, The Currant Shed, FINO, which picked up another award last week as best regional restaurant in South Australia, Ampika's Kitchen, a great Thai restaurant down in Willunga, and Blessed Cheese who picked up the best cafe at the same awards last week—all served up some great local food and of course there was lots of good McLaren Vale wine to wash it down.

We had the likes of d'Arenberg, Alpha Box and Dice, Chapel Hill, Shottesbrooke, Paxton's, Dogridge—they had 'The Pup' Shiraz there—Wirra Wirra and Battle of Bosworth. Battle of Bosworth of course has picked up many organic wine awards both here and across in New Zealand over the years. It was a tremendous night for it, great weather and a really good concert, and I wish Sally and Alistair all the best as they plan next year's festival.

I would also like to mention while we are on the subject of music that it is Oz Music Month—November—and triple j has done a great job once again. The Whitlam government set up Double J, as it was called in New South Wales in 1974 and it was meant to be the national youth network. Unfortunately, when Malcolm Fraser got in, he did not think that was a very good idea to have a national youth network, so we did not get triple j here in Adelaide until 1989. I know that Tom Kenyon is a great fan of triple j. They gave the Hilltop Hoods and great South Australian bands a really good start.

Members interjecting:

Mr BIGNELL: Everyone on this side; as I said, we are going to name everyone as great triple j fans. We really must commend triple j not only for the great music it plays but also for the way it supports, discovers and promotes so many great Australian acts. Listening to Home & Hosed over the last couple of nights we have had Fire! Santa Rosa, Fire!—a great Adelaide indie group who has been getting a lot of airplay—and then last night Full Tote Odds—I am sure Mr Kenyon would know Full Tote Odds—a hip-hop ensemble from the Adelaide Hills featuring Levelheaded, Slats, Eslev, Ross Read and DJ Hacksaw—a fantastic outfit. As Molly Meldrum might say, 'Do yourself a favour and go out and get the album,' because they are good; or download it onto iTunes.

South Australia has always had a proud history of producing great music acts and I really commend the Premier and people like the Hon. John Gazzola in another place who are really trying to reactivate the live music scene here in South Australia and get Adelaide as the national capital of live music, just as Austin, Texas is in the USA; they took the mantle over from Seattle. I think there are so many great things that can come from having a really strong music culture. Again, congratulations to everyone involved in the Gorgeous Festival. I am really looking forward to getting back there next year for another fine show.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): Thank you; always very informative, the member for Mawson. The infamous member for Waite.

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