Music, mud and monster joints. That was Ian Wilson’s experience of the Narara Music Festival in 1984.

The first Narara Music Festival was constructed on an expansive piece of land not far from Gosford, New South Wales. It was held on the Australia Day weekend in 1983 and was a celebration of Australian music featuring bands such as Cold Chisel, Men At Work, The Divinyls, Australian Crawl, INXS and The Angels plus many more.

Based on that, expectations were high as I drove a car load of reprobate friends down from Toowoomba, to the site of Narara ’84 in my Mitsubishi Express van, a trip of approximately 10 hours. We were to meet a crew of other army mates from Sydney and set up camp for three days of debauchery, loosely hinged on drinking, dope and music.

At this point I need to confess and clarify something. We used to smoke pot. Not the toxic, psychotropic stuff grown under lights in ceiling recesses, but organic bush dope grown in Murphy’s Creek at the base of the Great Dividing Range in the fertile Darling Downs. The strain of cannabis is called sinsemilla, a seedless flower that flourished in south-east and northern Queensland. The methodology was simple – smoke, laugh your arse off, eat like it’s your last meal on Earth and sleep like a baby. No one got hurt and from what I recall, we mostly had a great time.

We were 20, and as servicemen it was a small escape from the rigidity of army life. And, yes, we even smoked it with officers, but we never let it interfere with our work. No matter what mischief we got up to on weekends in Toowoomba we always got to work on time at the Army Aviation Centre in Oakey, took our roles seriously and never took a day off.

The weed supply was so plentiful that we gave much of it away. The sinsemella “heads” were so big that two heads, both snapped or cut in half, constituted a “bag” or ounce. My friend Keith’s party trick was to roll a 50-paper joint using an entire packet of Tally-Ho papers and half a matchbox for a filter. It looked like a Havana cigar and it would be guaranteed to liven up an otherwise routine barbecue at a friend’s house.

Keith and I lived together when I arrived in Oakey as a 17-year-old. We were from two different worlds – me from a lower socio-economic region of WA and he from Sydney’s North Shore and the elite Knox Grammar School. He was much more experienced in life than me and I found myself swept up in his gregarious nature which was often risky and dangerous, a complete contradiction to my smalltown sensibility. A few months prior to Narara ’84 he was posted to Sydney so the weekend was a reunion of sorts for us.


A much younger Ian Wilson, circa 1983.

Keith met us at the Gosford Post Office on the Friday which was the first day of the festival. We followed him to the site and I then noticed the squadron of security guarding the entrance. As we walked towards the gate, I questioned Keith as to what was going to happen if these guys found the two bags of dope in my bag. He wasn’t fazed and said it would be fine. The security guard asked me if I was carrying any metal or cans. I replied that I didn’t. He reached into my bag and pulled out the dope at which point I saw my military career disintegrate to dust right before me.

He held the two bags in one hand and then pulled out a standard metal coat hanger that I had packed. He turned to me and said, “What’s this?” I said, “It’s a coat hanger. We are going to turn it into a joint holder for a 100-paper joint.” To which he responded: “Cool, no problem but I have to confiscate it.” And then we entered. True story. I was flabbergasted. Others were just flabbergasted that I was seriously going to roll a 100-paper joint. Keith and I had made a pact to roll an enormous joint, supported by a refashioned coat hanger and pass it around the crowd in the concert pit for their enjoyment.

Keith and I had a three-man tent set up next to a borrowed army 11ft x 11ft tent which housed the others. There were 35,000 people attending the weekend and the tent city was vast. Beer was served from kegs into two-litre plastic juice bottles so after drinking them, some punters decided that rather than walk to the toilets, it would be quicker to urinate back into the empties and throw them onto the designated walkways. Often early in the morning a disoriented stoned person, stumbling aimlessly around the tents, would partake in what they thought was a refreshing ale, only to be bitterly disappointed.

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Apparently Simple Minds and The Eurythmics played on the Friday night but I don’t remember. Saturday was going to be a ripper – Hoodoo Gurus, Models, INXS, The Pretenders and Talking Heads were on the bill, so lots to look forward to. Around lunchtime a hippy from Nimbin was walking around selling drugs openly from one of those mobile carry trays that you see kids selling ice creams from at the footy. Instead of calling out, “Drumsticks, Paddle Pops”, etc, it was, “Trips, speed, hash, weed.” It reminded me of Graham Chapman as Brian in The Life Of Brian selling “wolf nipple chips” at the gladiator contest!

Anyway, Keith and I bought a tab of acid each thinking as you do at that age, “When in Rome?” Well after two hours or so of tripping followed by an hour of recovery sleep, we had missed The Pretenders and Talking Heads, the two bands we wanted to see the most. Well done you imbeciles! I checked on my mates next door and none of them had moved either. Fellow West Australian Gavin, a very funny individual, had decided he wasn’t going anywhere while he had a constant supply of beer and pot. I wasn’t looking forward to driving his wretched stench back home after three days of squalor but he refused to budge.

“Shower, Gav?”
“ No.”

We had high hopes for day three, given the non-events of the preceding two days. On stage there was a collection of independent Australian artists such as Deckchairs Overboard, Strange Tenants and The Sunnyboys with international act Def Leppard to finish off the night. We decided that because our joint holder had been confiscated, we would roll the standard 50-“papery” and head to the concert space. As The Sunnyboys came on, we lit up and passed the giant “scoob” around the delighted crowd.

All this time we were unaware of the menacing clouds that were surrounding Northern NSW. About an hour later The Radiators were playing and the first of the gigantic raindrops started to strike. There wasn’t any wind when the heavens opened, just an incredible volume of water driven by rain that had serious weight. The Radiators ran off stage and we witnessed dozens of young blokes wrestling and sliding in thick mud trying to maintain a sense of fun.

It took us a while negotiating mud, bodies and semi-full juice bottles to get back to our tent. We were confronted by Gavin and the rest of the boys sitting on chairs towards the front of the large tent, under cover but with a river now running through the middle of it, caused by a gaping hole in the roof. The river continued over the top of our tent which was now flat because the force of the rain had dislodged the tent poles and crushed the canopy flat. Everything inside the tent was destroyed or water logged.

With no other option than to stay awake all night, we went to the main commercial area where you could buy some food and even a bong if required (see below)! We found some garbage bags and string and decided to tie them around as much of our bodies as possible for some insulation. We looked like aliens and combined with the ample ingestion of weed to numb the cold, we wandered around like a couple of zombies.

Desperate for warmth in the early hours of the morning we approached the medical tent and rehearsed what we would say to the nurse in order for her to give us a bed. Rehearsal complete, we strode confidently to the nurse at her desk and simultaneously said, “Hello, we’re suffering from THC, LSD, OD. Help!” She smirked and gave us a firm, “Out!”

As daylight broke, the carnage was apparent. It’s believed of the 35,000 that attended Narara ’84, less than 1000 were there on the Monday. All music for the final day was cancelled due to the unstable nature of the ground beneath the stage. It would be the second and last Narara Music Festival. An absolute disgrace of a weekend and only compounded by the 10-hour drive home accompanied by the rotting corpse of an unwashed and malodorous Gavin.

I’m certainly not condoning the use of cannabis and personally I didn’t touch it after moving to Melbourne post-army to play footy some 35 years ago. However, to quote the great comedian Bill Hicks, “If you’re at a concert or ball game and someone is violent, aggressive and obnoxious, are they drunk or are they smoking pot? Drunk of course. I’ve never seen people on pot get into a fight, because it is f…… impossible!”

“Hey buddy!”
“Hey what?”
“Hey”
“Hey”
“Nothing…..you want some pizza?”

End of argument.

*You can read more of Ian Wilson’s work at WWW.ISOWILSON.COM