Sunbury Pop Festival '72 – Molly Meldrum interviews

The first Sunbury Pop Festival was held over the 1972 Australia Day long weekend on a private farm just outside of Melbourne.

Promoted by a group of television professionals who came together under Odessa Promotions, the event was captured by John Dixon and Ray Wagstaff in the documentary Sunbury ‘72.

The documentary opens with punters arriving at the festival – pouring in on trains, cars, motorbikes and on foot. In this clip a young Molly Meldrum, then a journalist for the pop music newspaper Go-Set, interviews attendees.

The audience are somewhat shy to Molly’s questions but there is a keen sense of excitement and anticipation among those coming to the festival. 'I’m expecting anything, really', says one person; another is there for 'peace, music, have a good time, see all the people'.

As the attendees arrive, the festival is being set up and the clip shows the vast infrastructure needed to stage such an event – from transport to emergency services, and sound systems to lighting towers (the scaffolds for which were destined to become adult climbing frames for fearless audience members seeking a better view).

Important developments in amplifiers and PA systems in the late 1960s had enabled bands and comperes to be heard by the thousands at large outdoor concerts.

Gerry Humphreys from the band The Loved Ones was the MC for Sunbury 1972 and here we see him booming into the microphone to conduct some important housekeeping: 'drink a lot of water... or whatever else you’re drinking', 'be cool because the fuzz are pretty nice at the moment, we'd like to keep it that way'.