Let's Get Together

While there were several fairly large towns – Terrigal, Gosford, Swansea, The Entrance – that had been popular holiday destinations for decades, in the late-1980s and early-'90s, the NSW Central Coast exploded as “the” new area adjacent to the sprawl that is Sydney where young families could build new lives in their little block of suburban paradise by the sea. The result has the creation of the third largest urban area in New South Wales and the ninth largest urban area in Australia.

A lot of those families naturally included toddlers who, in their teens seemed to discover rock and pop with a vengeance, to the point where as the noughties arrived, it seemed every second band seemed to come from the Central Coast. Not that any of that was necessarily in the mind of The Lazys' frontman Leon Harrison when the idea of The Reunion Festival came to him.

“I was clearing out my desk drawer,” Harrison explains, “and I found an old EP I drummed on in a band called Years From Now – we were tied in with the One Dollar Short kind of scene. It's a great EP and thought there'd be a lot of people in the community who would remember it, so I put it on the Facebook group site called Central Coast Band Museum. It's just like Facebook really but you can archive stuff, save files and everybody just started uploading content for the page and I was just filing it. So there's a hundred bands uploaded there now and just the stuck that being thrown up on the wall was out of control for like probably three weeks, reminiscing Coast music. So then I thought to myself, 'It'd be good to throw a show, aye?'”

Harrison got in touch with The Entrance Leagues Club and “I automatically threw it open to anyone and everyone. There was talk about having a two-day festival type thing but, you know, a lot of people couldn't get back together or maybe wanted to sit on the sideline this year and see how it went. But basically anyone who's put music up is pretty much on the bill,” he laughs.

Performing over three stages then are, in no particular order, After The Fall, In The Grey, Angela's Dish, The Lazys, We Are Grace, Bright Yellow, Old Music For Old People, Miramar, Elliot The Bull, Luke Gallen & Personalities, Mark My Words, Able Archers, PK Rippers, Thieves, Sarah Humphreys & Loren Kate, Sparrows, Porchlight Fiasco, Outsane, Rocwater, One Jonathon, Cocapenny, Go To Bed Jessica, I, The Hunter, Mystic Flare, Crooked Little Daggers, Stolen Memories, Daxton & The Sweetlips, Elwood Myre, The Punk Rock Hillbilly Show, Belle Townsend, Mark Moldre, Bec Pap and Blue Fusion – as diverse a line-up as you could want.

“And fantastic talent, aye?” Harrison enthuses. “I've got a beer garden stage happening, which is across the club, and that's gonna be a more singer-songwriter stage, so people like Sarah Humphreys, who has just put out a new album [Hello] and I've a Big Band playing out there, Luke Gallen, and Rocwater, who are upbeat groovy stuff. It's gonna be sick! It's gonna cater for everyone.

“PK Rippers reformed for the gig – they were a real punk band from the late '90s – and Miramar – they won the triple j Unearthed film clip and unfortunately disbanded a short time ago. In The Grey obviously and we've got a couple of new bands – We Are Great – they were working with [Easybeats'] Harry Vanda a year ago – and I'm sure next year we're gonna get an abundance of people wanting to get involved.”

The Lazys will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 22 December - The Reunion, The Entrance Leagues Club, Batueau Bay NSW