On March 20, 2022 an event was held at the Brunswick Ballroom to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Sunbury Music Festival. On the show were Spectrum & Madder Lake.

I went to listen to Spectrum but … Running alongside their performance was a huge screen showing footage of the festival from 50 years ago. So as Mike Rudd began to sing on stage, Billy Thorpe was up there filling the screen. Having both divided my attention enormously. Though Mike did say the following day that as he was pointed in the opposite direction he wasn’t distracted.

At times I found myself listening to Spectrum (& as I know their repertoire quite well, I know the songs they delivered that day) but watching the big screen. On it I saw Sheryl Blake (aka Sheryl Black) who was one of 3 Kiwi singers out front with SCRA, Max Merritt & Dave Russell (with Max & his Meteors) & Bruce Howard who was at that time keyboard player for the Aztecs. And there was footage of the interview that Max & Billy did with Molly Meldrum where Max talked about the need to be prepared to stay in a new location for a year before anything happens if you & your band move cities/countries. He’d moved 3x by then so he knew. He’d moved from Christchurch to Auckland; Auckland to Sydney then Sydney to London.

Spectrum were great but it was a truly weird experience.