Immortalising a milestone moment for Australian rock music.
Deemed to be one of the most significant events in the shaping of Australia’s musical identity, Sunbury 1973 is set to receive a triple vinyl reissue this summer.
Held across January 27, 28 and 29, Sunbury ’73 was attended by an estimated 30,000 music fans, with an $8 ticket allowing them to witness Madder Lake, Billy Thorpe, Kerryn Tolhurst, Lobby Loyde and Johnny O’Keefe over the span of three days.
The festival was recorded onsite by John French and was subsequently released by Michael Gudinski’s newly minted Mushroom Records as The Great Australian Rock Festival – Sunbury ’73.
The record was both the first ever release from Mushroom Records as well as the first ever triple LP cut down under, and helped to establish Gudinski as the omnipresent force in the music industry that we know him to be today.
“With Sunbury, we wanted to make a statement that Mushroom was a serious record label that we wanted the retailers, the media, the musicians, the public to take seriously and know we meant business for Australian music,” Gudinski said in a statement shared alongside the announcement of the reissue today.
“I thought it was an amazing coverage of what was three days of incredible Australian music. And it was the perfect springboard for the label and consolidation for Madder Lake and the other bands that were there at the time.”
Set for release on Friday January 22, the 2021 repressing of The Great Australian Rock Festival – Sunbury ’73 will feature all of the same tracks as the original release, and will be pressed to watermelon red wax – a nod to the ever-entrepreneurial Gudinski selling watermelons to punters at the festival.
Preorder The Great Australian Rock Festival – Sunbury ’73 via Bloodlines.
