Behind the poster art lies a story, and James Young, Cherry Bar owner and booker and principal organising mind behind Cherry Rock, wants to tell it.
“Twenty odd years ago I was going to Meredith with some mates, Natalie and Darren, and I was wearing a denim jacket with cut-off sleeves,” Young says. “We’re not far from Meredith and I said ‘I’ll put the tickets in my jacket pocket, and I’ll also put all the contraband in there as well.’ ”
But then disaster strikes. “We come around the corner and there’s a kangaroo in the middle of the road. We hit it and the poor thing flies in the air and lands, whacking its head, dead on the ground.”
In shock from the encounter, Young and his friends pulled over, dragged the kangaroo to the side of the road and waited for parks and wildlife officers to arrive to attend to the kangaroo. “Being young and stupid and 25 years of age, we decided to get some photos with this giant roo,” Young says. “Natalie was saying this was really bad form, but we stood the roo up, it’s about seven foot tall and we’re taking photos. Then someone says ‘Put your denim jacket with the Motörhead patch on the roo.’ ”
With the apparently-deceased kangaroo dressed in Young’s cut-off denim jacket, and flanked by two smug 20-something rock’n’roll fans, the unimaginable happens: the kangaroo wakes up. “It pushed me aside with its left paw, pushes Darren away with his right paw and bounds off over this fence, about a metre and half high, and bounces off into the distance. And then I realised. It’s got my jacket, the tickets and all the stuff in the pocket of my jacket.”
Thankfully Young and his friends were still able to get into Meredith, sans contraband. 25 years later, Young wonders what happened to the kangaroo. “I picture it standing up on the top of the hill in a cut-off denim jacket, some battered tickets and a few recreationals in the pocket, never to be taken on by another roo in its life, because it’s the only roo with a Motörhead jacket.” Young says.
The story inspired Young’s designer to use the wild Motörhead roo as the basis for this year’s Cherry Rock festival poster. In a moment of inspired artistic licence, the designer decided to include Bon Scott’s tattoos on the kangaroo’s arms. And while Young hasn’t sighted the roo since the fateful day, he hopes it’s still going strong, just like Young’s treasured Cherry Rock.
“One of the strengths of Cherry Rock is definitely that we’re still going,” Young says. “We continue to be Australia’s own dedicated street rock’n’roll festival.” This year’s event is headlined by legendary garage rock band The Dwarves, and includes the manic southern rock of Nashville Pussy, female two-piece Spanish band Bala, Bottlecap from Sweden, two Indonesian rock bands, Mooner and Kelompok Penerbang Roket, plus Melbourne locals Child, Stiff Richards, and stripped back garage outfit Amyl and the Sniffers.
“Some of the ongoing success of Cherry Rock is luck, because I pick bands that I love and hope people turn up, but that seems to work,” Young says. “It’s just luck that this year we’ve got eight international bands on the bill, so the festival is continuing to get some international respect.”
For Young the single moment that symbolizes what Cherry Rock is all about is a brief moment of tension backstage a few years ago between a couple of imposing rock’n’roll dudes. “The only time we almost had a fight at Cherry Rock was when Chris from Barbarian and Rob Riley from Rose Tattoo both went for the last chicken wing at the same time,” Young says. “Chris snatched it away, and it was on. He was not going to give it up, and Rob Riley, who’s a huge guy, wasn’t happy. It took a few of us to calm it all down.”
By Patrick Emery
