Fairlight Festival Revisited (or the adventures of the Mittagong Mafia).

Fairlight Festivals 1971

Venue: 200 acre farm (Fairlight) four miles south of Mittagong on the way to Berrima NSW. Set in a gentle sloping clearing divided by a stream. One side set for camping the other music.

Stage: An old Sydney tram elevated six feet off the ground with a twenty foot extension out the front.

Fairlight #1 (Blues and Heavy Music) Festival 30-31 January 1971

Promoters: Billposters (Peter Manley & David Chilvers)

Compere: Jeff Cantor

Bands: Doug Parkinson, Jeff St John and Copperwine, Nutwood Rug, Blackfeather, Kharvas Jute, Melissa, King Biscuit, Arthur, Freshwater, Cleves, La De Das, Powderhorn, Galadriel, Whistlers Mother, Cannon, Pirana, Tully, Habit, Climax and Trench.

Fairlight #2 (The Easter Happening/The Timeless Trip) Festival 9-12 April 1971

Promoters: Jim & Barbara Henderson

Bands: Tully, Fanny Adams, Marian Henderson, La De Das, Pirana, Greg Quill and Country Radio, Wild Cherries, Zenith, Gunga Din, Gut Bucket, Climax, Doug Parkinson, 69’ers, Co-Caine, Freshwater, Sweet Wine, Robin Sinclair and Assembly, Sandy Edmonds, Original Batterse Heroes, Hans Poulson, Galadriel, Whistler’s Mother and Barry McAskill and the Levi Smith Cleffs.

A comment posted on my article BS – Before Sunbury by David Chilvers one half of Billposters (see below), who promoted the first Fairlight Festival (Australia Day long weekend January 1971) led to a few email exchanges that shed some light on the shifty goings on.

Hi, I’m David C., one of the organisers of the first Fairlight festival. Great to come across your site! Funny you should mention the money hidden in the ceiling. Jim Henderson suggested we should hire a security guard to look after the takings, and boy, did he look after them! I think he was a member of the Mittagong Mafia! Luckily we had made a deal with all the bands, lighting, sound and other suppliers that we would pay them a fixed percentage of the takings. Amazingly we parted on good terms! I’m currently (for the last 10 years) writing up the story for Milesago as they’ve conflated the two festivals. Cheers, Dave C.

Newspaper (Mis)Information

Under the heading ‘Best bet of the pop festivals’ Michael Symons previewed the upcoming festivals, Wallacia, Myponga and Fairlight as a betting form guide. Fairlight was lucky (maybe) to have had the Australia Day weekend as the promoters of Wallacia had booked the previous weekend thinking logically that it was the Australia Day weekend. The writer suggested that Fairlight was a stayer and a safe bet. Here’s a little of how he viewed the race to pan out.

The Fairlight Blues and Heavy Music Festival, to be held the following weekend, is probably the safest bet of the festivals. Organisers have aimed at staying the distance and have not advertised for overseas acts, although the “Hollies” who will be in Sydney, may appear on the Sunday afternoon. As part of the program the Rev. Ted Noffs will hold what he calls a Sunday morning celebration with some of the groups. The promoters are two Mittagonians who joined with the owners of the Fairlight Aboriginal tourist reserve, where the festival is being beld. It is four miles past Mittagong, on the Hume Highway. The owners, Jim and Barbara Henderson have long had plans for a jazz festival and a Bondi tram bought for a roadside bar will be used as part of the stage. We deliberately sought no overseas acts we wanted to stick with something credible, an agent Mr Jim Towers, said yesterday. The festival had been received well in Canberra, Goulburn, Wollongong and the Bankstown and Penrith areas of Sydney he said. The lush Mittagong site has a creek, dam, water tanks and 200 lavatories.

Sydney Morning Herald 16th January 1971

Dave responded to some of the outrageous statements in this article.

‘Hollies may appear on the Sunday afternoon’ – “Made up nonsense”.

‘The Reverend Ted Noffs will stage what he calls a Sunday morning celebration’- “More nonsense.”

‘The promoters are two young Mittagonians’ – “WTF!!”

‘We wanted……credible, an agent Mr Jim Towers said yesterday’ – “Confusion reigned, we never had any agents working for us.”

‘200 lavatories’ – “20!!”

Money Gone – not once, but twice!

All hope of financial recovery from the festival’s washout disappeared with the loss of the $6,000 which festival promoters had hidden in the roof of one of the home’s rooms. When boundary riders, hired to patrol fences around the 200-acre property to keep out gatecrashers, stormed the house demanding payment for their work, the money could not be found. Promoters said some of the men had been drunk on the job and had been admitting people without tickets. The men were given half pay but then rioted demanding the balance. (The Canberra Times, 2nd February 1971).

The Canberra Times, 2nd February 1971

Here’s David’s response.

“Talk about damn lies and statistics.”

‘$6,000 which festival promoters had hidden in the roof’ – “Total bullshit!”

‘Promoters said some of the men had been drunk on the job and had been admitting people without tickets’ – “More bullshit, the promoters had already done a runner to Melbourne, and anyway, it was the Hendersons idea to hire them, not ours!”

Who were the Hendersons?

Peter and David, on their initial search for a venue, left word in a few of the local pubs of the need of a suitable venue and a Jim Henderson soon offered his (maybe his brother’s) property, Fairlight. Jim Henderson hired men on horseback to be boundary riders to protect the event from gatecrashers. Funny, David felt they were friends of Jim Henderson. It was also on Jim’s suggestion that a security guard was employed to protect takings. That went well! Dave knew little about the Hendersons at the time: “I Didn’t know much about the Hendersons, although I have heard since that they were pretty shifty. And BTW, strangely enough the takings from the Easter festival were also ‘stolen’. Who’da thunk it??!!”

I’ll let Peter Manley have his say on the Hendersons. “..the other (Fairlight Festival) by Jim and Barb Henderson (trailer trash on steroids). I had been told by a Dr Henderson that he owned the property known as Fairlight and that Jim was his brother, who was untrustworthy and a standover merchant. But we went ahead. It’s clear where the money went from Fairlight one?” (Comment on JPJ audio website January 27, 2020).

I had wondered if the theft had been reported to the police either by the promoters or the Hendersons. David replied. “If they’d reported the theft to the cops we would’ve found out pretty quickly, Peter’s father was Sergeant in charge at Bowral, the town next to Mittagong.” He also commented, “As far as police investigating, we didn’t really pursue it and had done a runner to Melbourne within a few days.”

Tharunka a student magazine of New South Wales University suggested, with perhaps a quote from Jeff Cantor (compère) that; “…and the local boundary riders employed to look after the fences ran off with the loot. The police are not interested they have had enough of long-hairs and pop festivals – and the press choose to ignore it. And so nothing can be done.”

Australia Day Fairlight Photographs

Fairlight #1 suffered the curse of all outdoor festivals (No Covid back then) – the elements, with rain setting in late Saturday evening around 9pm washing out the rest of the night’s program. The wilting parachute sails of Jands had earlier provided a unique light show pulsating to the beat of the band. Rain extended well into Sunday, but with the stage pretty well rain resistant (something you require with electrical equipment) a couple of bands ventured out performing to the drenched, but faithful punters. Maybe they needed the Reverend Ted Noffs.

Easter Fairlight

Greg Quill’s Country Radio were there at the second Fairlight, but I’m not sure the late great Chris Blanchflower was – he isn’t in the photograph. A couple of live performances were recorded from the Easter edition of Fairlight for GTK (Get to Know) on the ABC television. Check out Whistler’s Mother, who performed at both festivals – Religious Palette.

Postscript: Peter, David and Jeff didn’t get a brass razoo from their festival! Someone did! Has the statute of limitations passed? That’s statute not statue Kramer!

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