It was the Hoodoo Gurus front man Dave Faulkner who made the point on the stage at the Big Red Bash.
“You are probably sick of hearing this,” Faulkner told the 6000 festivalgoers.
“But is one of the best gigs we’ve ever played.”
He need not have worried, the crowd roared their appreciation.
The feeling was mutual and almost all those present firmly believed it was the best gig they’d been to – well, at least since last year’s Big Red Bash.
And it was hard not to be swept up in the amazingness of it all.
Normally the home of some of the Brook family’s finest beef cattle, a few kangaroos and not much else, this week this remote wilderness was transformed by 6000 ticketholders, 2000 volunteers and possibly another 1000 workers, making it a 9000-strong camping ground for three days, a caravanserai that was temporarily one of the biggest town in regional Queensland, and all set against the jawdropping beauty of Big Red Dune, 40km from Birdsville, in the middle of the Simpson Desert.
Organisers called it the world’s most remote music festival and everyone was having a good time, not least the performers with the calibre of John Farnham, Daryl Braithwaite, the Angels, the Black Sorrows, Kate Ceberano and many others joining the Hoodoo Gurus for a festival of song and sand.
One of the highlights of this year’s Bash was a world record attempt on the Tina Turner dance song, Nutbush City Limits. The previous record was 522 people doing it simultaneously in Victoria.
At the Bash, over 1800 people paid $10 to the Royal Flying Doctors charity to take part though Guinness Book of Records judge Pete Fairbairn warned that if he and his scrutineers disqualified more than 10% in the five minute dance for not doing the steps properly, the record would not count.
“I’d be the most unpopular man in Birdsville, but I’m just doing my job,” he said.
He need not have worried.
After 15 minutes tallying up the results, Mr Fairbank announced that 91 people were disqualified but that left 1719 still standing, smashing the previous mark.
Birdsville Big Red Bash had a world record to add to its ever-growing collection of great memories.