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Nambassa Festival

Television (Full Length) – 1979

The three day Nambassa Festival, held on a Waihi farm in 1979, is the subject of this documentary. Attended by 60,000 people, it represented a high tide mark in Aotearoa for the Woodstock vision of a music festival as a counterculture celebration of music, crafts, alternative lifestyles and all things hippy. Performers include a frenzied Split Enz, The Plague (wearing paint), Limbs dancers, a yodelling John Hore-Grenell and prog rockers Schtung. The only downers are overzealous policing, and weather which discourages too much communing with nature after the first day.

I have read here and there that the Split Enz Nambassa show was patchy. Phooey! I was blown out of my high perch by an inspired, awesome, display of edgy, driving pop music.
– Mike Chunn in his 1992 Split Enz book Stranger Than Fiction, page 162

Key Cast & Crew

Profile image for Philip Howe

Philip Howe

Director, Editor

Profile image for Peter Terry

Peter Terry

Producer

Profile image for Dale Farnsworth

Dale Farnsworth

Producer

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Andrew McAlpine

Camera Operator

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Doug Jane

Stage Sound

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Dave Hurley

Sound Mix

See all 19 credits

Produced by

Logo for Nambassa Trust

Nambassa Trust

Source

Logo for Nambassa Trust

Nambassa Trust

Acknowledgements

NZ On Screen acknowledges the musicians and performers for allowing NZ On Screen to reproduce this title on this website. 


Documentary made with the assistance of the NZ Film Commission

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