Australia took some strange turns in the late 1960s.

Something happened for which our convict past had not prepared us:

the hippy movement landed and took root.

Music was the chosen vehicle for an alternative lifestyle which landed like an extra terrestrial invasion. Suddenly everything was 'out there'.

As we trekked off to festivals, combined sex and drugs and pushed at the corners of consciousness. What would become the soundtrack for this new generation?

By the late 1960s some young people did think they could make a new world. Peace, love and hippy values were going to change everything. Even down the pub. But the conservative heart of Australian suburbia was a harsh environment for such imported fantasies. Our musical revolution was different. Rebellion was brewing. The younger generation was getting more and more pissed off by old rules and lingering repression.

The biggest focus for change was the relentless escalation of the Vietnam war. Being against the war wasn't only a matter of principle, it was about not being conscripted to die in someone else's jungle.

Music was about to turn, but it was drugs that brought the opportunity for release from the straight society.

Everyone, it seemed, could get into rock and roll, sexual liberation and of course funny cigarettes.

Artists, film makers and musicians saw themselves as the trailblazers of the alternative lifestyle.

In a paddock in New South Wales a real musical revolution was coming, too. At an 'open-air festival of love peace and music', Ourimbah was Australia's first attempt at a Woodstock event. A weekend celebration of drug culture, alternative lifestyles and one long jam session.

A revolution based on peace, love and freedom failed to convert suburban Australia.

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