Articles
Rock music festivals
After a hesitant beginning in the early 1970s, rock festivals hit their stride with Nambassa, Sweetwaters and a string of smaller events in the early 1980s. Following a period of decline, festivals are today as popular as ever with Laneway, WOMAD and others catering to a wide range of musical taste.
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Page 2 – Beginnings
The early rock music festivals held in Auckland and Ngaruawahia reflected the troubled emergence of teenagers as a distinctive group and economic force in the second half of
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Page 3 – Nambassa
No-one predicted the success of the 1979 Nambassa Festival which drew over 65,000 fans.
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Page 4 – Sweetwaters and beyond
Sweetwaters - Festival of Music, Culture and Technology. There was a lot to that new tagline. It had the future in it. A modernity echoed by the band line-up. Having come
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Page 5 – The lights go down
From the late 1980s into the 1990s small scale and sharply focused rock music festivals would be the norm, though there were some notable exceptions
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Page 6 – Festivals galore
As the new century dawned it was clear music festivals were now a viable and often long-running proposition. WOMAD, the Big Day Out and others continue to attract huge crowds
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Main image: Mabel Howard
Howard became New Zealand's first female Cabinet Minister in 1947
