It doesn’t get any more Australian than an outback country music festival celebrating the Aussie spirit, culture and community, right? But all is not as it seems. John van Tiggelen took a trip to Tamworth and was more than a little bemused by what he found. Join John and musicians Nick Finch and Adam Johansen as they dissect what it means to be ‘Australian’ and just how flexible we are willing to be when it comes to defining ‘true blue’. John is also featured in the May edition of the Griffith REVIEW.

John van Tiggelen
John van Tiggelen was born in Holland, grew up in country Victoria, graduated in science and worked as a tour guide in the Daintree rainforest before turning to journalism. Since 1998 he has been writing for Good Weekend, the weekend magazine of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He is the author of Mango Country (Pan MacMillan), a collection of essays documenting North Queensland and short-listed for the Colin Roderick Award for Australian literature.

Further reading:
Want to learn a little more before John’s session? He suggests you have a listen to The Devil The Drink and The Dance, an album by Graveyard Train and watch Cunnamulla, the documentary film by Dennis O’Rourke.