The idea for the concert came from Queensland Music Festival Artistic Director for 2007 Paul Grabowsky, who was inspired after reading Andrew Stafford's book Pig City: From The Saints To Savage Garden.
[2] The line-up for the festival included: The Saints, Regurgitator, The Riptides, Kev Carmody, Screamfeeder, David McCormack, Ups & Downs, The Apartments, The Pineapples from the Dawn of Time, Kate Miller-Heidke, and The Brisbane Excelsior Band.
It was organised by The University of Queensland's Centre of Critical and Cultural Studies and featured Andrew Stafford, who gave a keynote speech.
He took the opportunity to address criticisms that suggested the book was written by an individual who was not present during the tumultuous period of Bjelke-Petersen's tyrannical reign, but wished he was.
He explained he had no intentions to "romanticise the era", rather he wanted to pay tribute to Brisbane's bands of that period who were not given due recognition in Australia's music industry.
He gave the example of the music scene in the 1970s as drawing both positive and negative energy alike from the local enthusiasm for the right to march movement, the national reaction to the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and the international anarchy inspired by the Sex Pistols in the UK.
Pig City: From The Saints To Savage Garden was written by Andrew Stafford over a period of three years, and published in 2004 by The University of Queensland Press.
However, Stafford stresses the importance of recognising that "bad politics does not, in and of itself, result in a great and glorious music scene".
[16] In the late 1960s, the New Left movement began in Queensland, activated largely in response to issues arising from the Vietnam War, civil liberties, and conscription.
[19] This was despite the fact that under Queensland's Traffic Act, demonstrators were required to obtain police permits for street marches to be considered legal.
[22] In Brisbane, Bjelke-Petersen "proclaimed a month-long state of emergency…on the pretext of protecting a visiting football team from political dissenters".
[30] These mass arrests were one of the major catalysts that encouraged University of Queensland students, as well as left unionists, to explore better ways to communicate with the Brisbane public.
[33] 4ZZZ FM aimed to "offer local perspectives which it believes were ignored by the mainstream stations" through its news and current affairs programming.
[35] It is considered a major part of the development of Brisbane's music scene at the time, giving airtime to local bands such as The Saints, The Go-Betweens, and The Parameters.