Warumpi Band Documentary – Big Name No Blanket

Above: Warumpi Band frontman George Rrurrambu Burarrawanga (left) with fellow founding member Neil Murray.

Last night my friend Bernie and I watched the 2013 documentary Big Name No Blanket about the trail-blazing Australian rock group the Warumpi Band and its late lead singer George Rrurrambu Burarrawanga.

I’ve long wanted to see this documentary and so was totally stoked to discover it last night on YouTube courtesy of Ash's Concerts & Video Showroom. Thanks, Ash!

You can watch Big Name No Blanket in its entirety below. But first, here's a brief excerpt from Will Owen's excellent review of (and meditation on) the film.

[The Warumpi Band] is a legend; there’s no disputing that. The first rock ‘n’ roll single to be sung in an Indigenous language; the band whose tutelage brought Midnight Oil to the creative peak of their own career with Diesel and Dust, the Oils’ album that grew out of the joint tour; the performance of “My Island Home” by Christine Anu at the closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics in 2000; the song “Blackfella/Whitefella” itself the anthem of reconciliation: all these are indelible markers in the renaissance of Indigenous culture in Australia in the final decades of the twentieth century. One of the great strengths of Big Name No Blanket is the way in which it revivifies the legend and sends back into your heart the jolt of excitement all those events generated.

Related Off-site Links:
Big Name No Blanket – Will Owen (Aboriginal Art & Culture: An American Eye, December 8, 2013).
Warumpi Band’s Trail-blazing Legacy: “We Just Wanted to Give Our Music to Everybody” – Andrew Stafford (The Guardian, November 19, 2021).
Warumpi Band Musical Is a Joyous, Rollicking Tribute – Cassie Tongue (The Guardian, January 11, 2024).
The Origins of Aboriginal Rock Legends the Warumpi Band – ABC Listen (December 27, 2021). Warumpi Band Musical Big Name, No Blankets Arrives in the Northern Territory for First Time – Matt Garrick (ABC News, August 6, 2024).

See also the previous Wild Reed post:
• Warumpi Band
• Celebrating Mabo
• Recognising and Honoring Australia’s First Naturalists
• Australian Indigenous Culture and the Reality of LGBTI Lives
• Jojo Zaho: “Let Your Faboriginality Shine Through”
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• An Australian Spirituality: “A Festival of Light and Rock” • Prayer of the Week – November 14, 2012
• Spirit Dreams