BUZZ ... BABBLE ... BUBBLE ... BURRA ... BACKHOUSE

The only thing I'd change about the quaint South Australian town of Burra is the name. Well not so much change it as double it. Burra feels like one groom at a same sex marriage. Surely the founding fathers could have stretched the nomenclature to Burra Burra. Like Bang Bang in Queensland or Wagga Wagga or Moon Moon Lake in New South Wales. 

When I arrived here for the first time I did the normal tourist dance and visited the local real estate agent. I won't be settling anywhere for a long time but If I did then Burra would be just perfect. It's just two days to the Alice, a couple of hours to Adelaide or Broken Hill, a fair day to Melbourne and a big one to Sydney with a bit of a skip over the Nullabour to Perth. 

As gold was to Bendigo and indecipherable lyrics were to James Reyne, coffee is to Burra. Great cafes can make a town when accompanied by good bookstores, antiques and museums. The old buildings of the town's centre don't peter out like a Hollywood set but remain true to the founding architecture. There are village greens, rock walls, a babbling brook, nooks, associated crannies, statues like the one of the digger in the square who stands as solitary as the town's name. 

On each of my three previous trips to this place I have wished I could run a program or workshop. Especially when I discovered Paxton Cottages by the creek where thirty old miners cottages surround a green quadrangle begging for a marquis in which breakfasts are served. But what?

And then it hit me .... it hit me in a way that I'd never been hit before:

A Gospel a Capella Festival with Tony Backhouse ...  BACKHOUSE DOES BURRA.

Tom and I are here in Burra right now. I am relieved that ideas can still sometimes flow with neither fuss nor bureaucracy, like the brook that babbles in front of the cottages. Within a week the idea has babbled, bubbled and some another 'B' word I can't think of right now.  The old theatre, where the Choir will perform for the local community, is booked. The Paxton Cottages are available.

Local historians, who lovingly try to revive the memory of Welsh miners brought in from Cornwall when copper was discovered, will lead daily walks and tell their stories.

The Town Hall will convert into a picture theatre nightly and the soundtracks of films like The Big Chill will be sung along to. The ladies from Burra Fresh will cater breakfast and lunch and the Seven Hill Winery in the Clare Valley, where Austrian Jesuits have made wines since 1851, will be visited. 

This is a new direction for Into the Blue. As the Electronic Swagman I just happened upon the place. Luck and chance are to be my new guides. The Backhouse does Burra Festival will be both a personal and a business re-invention.

So in March next year, BURRA WILL BUZZ. That's the other 'B' word.

The sounds of homesick Welshmen would have once filled this valley. A hundred years or so later, voices will again be raised in song.

We want a Festival where a hundred people fill the old cottages as well as the local restaurants at night;  then fill the auditorium with beautiful sounds and the souls of all present with joy. We want YOU. 

BUZZ ... BABBLE ... BUBBLE ... BURRA ... BACKHOUSE

JOIN US!

PRELIMINARY BROCHURE OUT SOON - DATES FIRMING LIKE CEMENT AS WE SPEAK. PROBABLY AROUND THE SECOND WEEK OF MARCH 2013.