Teresa Castley and Ray Chaber from The Wild Violets performing at the Moonlight Mountains Festival.By Monique Ebrington
WARBURTON’S Moonlight Mountains Festival struck a chord with an audience eager for early New Year’s celebrations.
Rain didn’t put a dampener on the night of entertainment as the family-based crowd of locals and holiday visitors filed into Warburton football oval on Saturday 27 December.
Warburton musicians, Nathan Elbourne, Angela Hammon, Tony Hammon and Shane Hammon have initiated the festival that is sponsored by the Warburton Community Bank.
Tony Hammon says that the festival aims at providing the region with an event that highlights the unique musical genres of blues, swing, rockabilly and country.
“The festival is basically trying to get that awareness of different music as well as giving people a look at different music,” Tony said.
“We’re just trying to bring some different music to The Valley.”
The festival, now in its third year, continued to entertain audiences with a variety of musical genres provided by The Detonators, Matt Dwyer, Ben Rogers Instrumental Asylum, Red River and Nailhead, Coyote Serenade, The Wild Violets, and Gatorbait.
Local singer Teresa Castley performed nine mountain-style country and bluegrass tunes with band The Wild Violets and says that she enjoyed her first Moonlight Mountain Festival experience.
“I hadn’t been to the Moonlight Mountain Festival before and it was a great atmosphere,” Teresa said.
“Having the mountains around the oval is a really special setting – perfect for mountain music – there were families on picnic blanket and kids dancing around I thought it was a really special festival.”
Teresa was also thrilled by the festival’s family-style atmosphere which meant her five-year-old daughter Ella could also safely enjoy the night.
“You could just watch the kids from your picnic blanket and it was a safe environment for them. I think with word of mouth this festival is really going to grow,” she said.
