Photo by Warwick Baker
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I first met Jerome during one of my regular stays at The Golden Door. He came up and introduced himself; he mentioned he ran a bar called St Jerome’s in a laneway alongside Lonsdale and Swanston Streets in Melbourne. I knew the area fairly well from the late ’60s and ’70s when we used to go to all the rocks clubs around the area and get chased by rockers and sharpies.
He mentioned he and his mate Danny Rogers had done a little indie festival in the laneway and it had gone off! I thought it was a great idea straight off the bat and I immediately thought of the laneways around Circular Quay in Sydney. I could see it as a perfect way to help break Aussie and international bands into the market and you could make it happen anywhere!
Soon after I sat down with both Jerome and Danny and we discussed bringing the festival to Sydney. The partnership is now into its sixth year and it has seen the festival mushroom across five cities in Australia, as well as Auckland and now Singapore. Over those years Jerome, Danny and the respective teams have created a festival that is now one of the most highly regarded boutique festivals across Australia and the pacific. I get an absolute buzz travelling the world and having agents and promoters ask me about bringing the festival to Stockholm, Brighton, New York City, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Amsterdam… the list goes on. Singapore has been our first big jump and many people told as we were crazy to do it, but we’ve proved them wrong. We’ve had people emailing from all across Asia wanting to be involved.
The festival has had many great rock moments. I’ll never forget Girl Talk inviting the audience on stage in Perth. Lucky the stage bounced back with the chaotic fun of the punters and me up there! Naturally the night ended with the Perth kids getting a dose of old school Chuggi. In an effort to get some of them into order I stopped the show and got the rest of the audience to help me chant, ‘hey you in the black t-shirt get off the fucking tree!’
It’s been a great ride so far, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be slowing down any time soon. We couldn’t be more proud of the calendar milestone the festival is today. It was especially rewarding to watch the reaction of all the kids involved in putting on the festival, when Sydney sold out on the first day and Melbourne followed a couple of days later this past October. It’s an event that’s truly come into it’s own over the last few years and is adored by both music lovers and the Aussie music community. It’s been an absolute honour to be a part of it and help the boys grow the vision.