There will be a couple of firsts for Sara Storer at the Tamworth Country Music Festival this week.
For the first time she will be performing her own concert in the Tamworth Town Hall, and to close that show, Storer and her brother Greg, will perform their new song Unite for the first time.
“It’s a song that we have big dreams for. It’s about being anti coal seam gas,” Sara said.
“And there’s a lot of farmers in this area that have been fighting the miners. I met up with a bloke the other day, and they’ve been fighting for 11 years. It’s very exhausting.
“You can never give up, but it’s hard because they’re just running out of money and they spend so much.
“I know the Liverpool Plains area has spent $800,000 in their community, all their own money just to try and fight,” she said.
Greg and Sara Storer perform part of their new song for The Northern Daily Leader. It will be played in front of a live audience for the first time on Thursday:
Greg Storer lives at Warren, which is other facing battles against coal seam gas (CSG) mining.
“Not to mention names, but certain mining companies are trying to get in there,” Sara said.
“Greg is on the land, he lives it, he’s got to fight for the future generations, and the only thing I can do, I mean we own a little bit of property, but not like what my brother and my family own, is speak out in other ways.
“I can do it through song, and Greg can do it through song, and just the more people hear about it (the better),” she said.
CSG mining is an issue that has prompted several country songs in recent years.
Husband and wife duo O’Shea won a Golden Guitar last year, for their song The Truth Walks Slowly, about the plight of farmers suffering from CSG mining, and The Bushwackers recorded a song called Leave It In The Ground on their current album.
O’SHEA: The Truth Walks Slowly (In The Countryside):
THE BUSHWACKERS: Leave It In The Ground:
“Sometimes you get really passionate about things, and this is one that we’ve got to fight for, it’s something that could be a catastrophe,” Sara said.
“We know we need energy,” Greg said, “but for us it’s all about our water. People are quite passionate about it, especially in the Coonamble area.
“At Warren we’ve got a little group going, just an awareness group, but the Coonamble people, they’re on the frontline. They’ve got people coming onto their properties to conduct surveys. Biosecurity is at risk and we just don’t want it,” he said.
Their concert at the Town Hall starts at 1.30pm on Thursday.
Sara has also been doing a few singer-songwriter showcases during the festival.
This story first appeared on The Northern Daily Leader.
