Like most people who were at Tony White Oval on Saturday, I’m still on a bit of a high from Triple J’s One Night Stand.
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It was a fantastic event as for one day at least, Mount Isa was THE place to be in Australia.
ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie was there for her first One Night Stand as boss of the broadcaster and she joked that for the first time her 21-year-old daughter who lives in New York was jealous of her mum and wanted to be in Mount Isa!
Ms Guthrie and her team at Triple J and their willing helpers at ABC North West Queensland put in a terrific effort to make this night of great music happen.
It was an enormous feat of logistics to turn an empty football oval into a concert venue capable of holding 10,000 people and broadcasting it live across the nation on radio (and to the world and 21-year-old expats in New York via the Internet).
That it happened at all was commendable, that it happened without a single hitch I was aware of (I’m sure that like serene ducks in the water, there was a lot of furious flapping going on just out of view) was remarkable.
Triple J have had plenty of practice bringing this event to small towns but Mount Isa represented the most remote place yet and they brought it off with considerable aplomb.
There is no doubt the event has had a very positive psychological effort on the city and hopefully it will mean people across the country will have a more informed view of the place we are proud to call home.
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Before I finish I must mention that Tuesday is Anzac Day and a suitable time to reflect on the great role played by our defence personnel across the world. I’m biased as I have a daughter in the army but they are a great credit to Australia.
I was reminded of just what they do when I attended the Fred Smith concert in the Civic Centre on Thursday.
The former diplomat’s album Dust of Uruzgan chronicles the stories of Australian service personnel in Afghanistan and the extraordinary dangers they faced on a daily basis in order to bring some semblance of normality to a troubled country.
Lest we forget. DB