Gathering inside the Big Top

20 October, 2003

JAMES CROOK reports that this year’s Blackstump music festival struck a chord with Generation X...

It started 18 years ago as a Christian music festival with one stage in the middle of a cow paddock.

This year Blackstump, which ran over the weekend of October 3-6, attracted a crowd of more than 3000 and featured 10 different stage venues which simultaneously showcased not only bands but drama, comedy, dance and a range of speakers from across the globe.

The non-denominational event now bills itself as an 'alternative Christian festival' rather than limiting itself to music. The new name fits it aptly.

Held at a large scout camp in Appin, about an hour south of Sydney, the festival is based around “the village”, a sprawling mass of several large tents and permanent buildings that house the stage venues around which is nestled a dozen or so smaller tents which contain shops and food vendors.

It's an easy place to mingle; there are a lot of people hanging around listening to bands on the small outdoor village stage or watching performance artists. There is always something spontaneous to get involved in: a game of hacky-sack, soccer, or mud-wrestling. Our group even got play hacky with Justin Micheal, lead singer of Compliments of Gus and morning presenter on Geelong's Rhema FM.

Delegates bring their own tents and camp outside the village on bush sites. There is no power, but there are toilets and showers with limited hot water.

The entertainment starts about 9am each day and continues until early the next morning and, in true gen-x style, everything is well organised but unstructured. Queues, if there are any, are small - mostly outside the coffee and donut tents (the popular 'Baptist' donuts are fully immersed and taste great) - and, unlike other large-scale conferences, there are no streams to sign up to or electives to write down. Once you're in for the weekend you can choose to go to (or not go to) whatever you want.

Each venue has a unique atmosphere. The Big Top is the largest and houses all the most popular bands - this year’s line-up included Compliments of Gus, Alabaster Box, The Idea of North, Juxtapose and Soulframe.

Camping at Blackstump in Appin, New South Wales

Other venues included the Garage for metal and heavy rock, the Palladium for drama and dance, the Supper Club where you could have coffee and cake while listening to jazz or vocals and Off Broadway for comedy and drama.

This year’s speakers included Mike Frost, an evangelist, author and founding director of the Centre for Evangelism and Global Mission at Sydney’s Morling College; Tim Costello, a Melbourne-based social commentator and baptist minister; Cath McKinney, an artist and Anglican pastor; and, Mike Pilavachi, co-director of the UK music festival Soul Survivor.

Frost's message at the Saturday morning gathering set the mood for the rest of the weekend's speakers.

He related that as children, we have a Brady Bunch philosophy: people are rewarded for good deeds, and bad deeds always backfire, punishing us and teaching us not to be bad again.

“But,” he says, “In the real world bad things happen to good people. And sometimes the worst people get rich and seem to have great lives.”

Rather than this realisation forcing us to abandon our belief in God, Frost encourages us to have a faith that accepts reality for what it is but sees God with us at all times.

Pilavachi echoed these sentiments when he spoke at the worship gathering on Sunday night.

“Sometimes I love my life,” he said, “But sometimes I am in a pit of despair.”

Pilavachi related how he has struggled because he does not feel like his life is up to the standard many great Christian leaders present. What we need to realise, he says, is that God loves us no matter what.

These are the kind of messages gen-x needs to hear. Unlike baby boomers, our world is stuffed up, our families are broken and we've got no idea how to sort our lives out.

Our brush with fame: playing hacky with Justin Micheal

I guess what I love the most about Blackstump is that it keeps it real. The people there look like the people I see every day at TAFE, at the pub, down the pizza shop or at the beach. Totally normal for our generation. And we're all accepting each other and having a great time together and being Christian but not feeling like we have to tone down or change our image.

I admire the organisers for presenting the gospel in a real and relevant way, without making assumptions about what people should be like, but also challenging us to live a God-centred life.

And the music's good too.

www.blackstump.org.au