Dave Rowlands needs to sell tickets to the Goulburn Blues Festival quickly to bring headline acts to Goulburn early next month. Photo: John Thistleton.
Dave Rowlands has experienced the pinnacle of success as a blues musician and depths of despair, wanting to die following a collision with a car.
Dave was the drummer in ‘Phil Jones and the Unknown Blues’ band which Festivals Records recorded in the 1960s with its hit, If I had a ticket/300 pounds of joy.
Then, in 2009, while riding his pushbike home after work one afternoon, a car overtook him and then turned left, causing him to collide with it.
“I was thrown over the front of the car, my bike went under the car, luckily for me,” Dave said. Suffering severe head injuries, he later allowed the University of NSW to study his brain injury.
“One thing I learned in the research was when you have a traumatic brain injury, the first symptom you get is chronic depression,” he said. “It can force you to give up living because it is so overwhelming.”
He was unable to work again. He lost his job as a handyman at an accommodation centre for the army in Brisbane. But he still had his music, and a fierce determination to drag himself out of depression.
Now he is using that same drive in an attempt to resurrect the Goulburn Blues Festival.
In March last year Australian National Events said it was unable to complete a five-year contract to organise the festival, and Goulburn Mulwaree Council announced the event was finished.
Dave, who performed at the festival in 2004, moved from Sydney recently to Goulburn and is determined to keep the festival going.
Simon Kinny-Lewis and his band are the headline act for the Goulburn Blues Festival next month. Photo: Simon Kinny-Lewis Band.
After going around live music venues in the city’s clubs and pubs and being told without funding he had no chance, and having his supporters walk away saying it was all too hard, the drummer and washboard player knows what he is up against.
But he has a sliver of hope. The Goulburn Club has agreed to give him their venue, public address and backline of drums on Saturday 8 February, from 2 pm to 11 pm. It’s a small venue and a limited time, yet he is prepared to give it everything.
“So I forged ahead with it, contacted musicians and have been a little bit overwhelmed with the number applying, even after I announced I had a full bill,” he said.
Top Australian singer and guitarist Simon Kinny-Lewis will be the headline act, one of nine bands who Dave hopes will bring blues fans from Sydney, Newcastle, the South Coast and Canberra back to Goulburn. “If I can get their attention I know they will come to the one on 8 February,” he said. He is also mentoring popular Goulburn band Midnight Mojo and hopes their following will boost ticket sales.
He said some diehard fans had been returning to Goulburn every year since the blues festival’s inception 25 years ago.
A radio announcer at the Tamworth Country Music Festival will promote the Goulburn event during the country music festival. Sapphire Community FM will promote it on the far South Coast, and he is using social media.
“If we don’t sell enough tickets to pay the artists, then we will have to cancel the event,” he said bluntly. “I don’t want that to happen; there is so much hanging on the success of this event, to keep it alive.”
He will assess ticket sales and make a final decision on 29 January.
“The reward I get is the satisfaction knowing I have been able to do something to help the festival survive,” Dave said.
Goulburn Blues Festival will take place on Saturday 8 February from 2 pm to 11 pm at the Goulburn Club, Market Street, Goulburn. Tickets are $64.84. Book your online ticket here.
If you or someone you know needs help, you can contact:
Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis support line – 13 11 14
Suicide Call Back Service – 1300 659 467
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