Basin Concert, golf and whale standings filled the pages on The Examiner in 1998
Reflection on 1998 featuring Hunters and Collectors.
Author: Brinley Duggan, The Examiner.
Date: 21 February 2021.
Article Text
February 21, 1998
For the second time in two weeks in February 1998 whales had marooned themselves on Tasmanian West Coast beaches.
The initial stranding on February 4 saw 64 of 65 washed up sperm whales die at Strahan. The second time around, on February 20, 33 sperm whales beached themselves 140 kilometres north at Marrawah.
All of the 33 whales in the second stranding had died by February 22, but not before “callous souvenir hunters” ripped out the teeth of some of the whales.
On February 21, Parks and Wildlife director Max Kitchell has already foreshadowed a second round of heartbreak.
“I think it’s really futile now, frankly. There’s really not a lot we can do now,” he said.
The Examiner’s front page previewed the recently revived Basic Concert ahead of what would be the second last incarnation of the long running event for 16 years.
Launceston band Hogwash members Rob Thomas, Greg Patmore and Justin O’Donnell played alongside Hunters and Collectors in 1998. Picture: File
Headliners of 1998’s Basin Concert were Hunters and Collectors, The Mavis’s and Cosmic Psychos. The Hunters and Collectors performance was part of a farewell tour for the famous Australian rock band.
At the time Basin Concert, which had run for 30 consecutive years, was the longest-running outdoor concert.
The January 1998 Real Estate Institute of Tasmania report had just been released detailing house prices in Launceston.
Coming into the market then, on average a house would set back a prospective buyer $84,100 and a lot of land could be snatched up for $30,300.
In sport, golf was the talk of the day with Tasmanian golf star Matthew Goggin backing up a Masters’ second place a week earlier with an impressive showing at the Canon Challenge in Sydney.
Goggin would go on to get a spot on the PGA tour in 2000 and climb to a ranking of 48 in the world.
Appearing on The Examiner’s pages alongside Goggin was fellow up-and-coming Australian golfer Aaron Baddeley.
Then 16-year-old Baddeley was squaring off in the Tasmanian Open against another would-be Australian golf star Adam Scott.
Baddeley has since climbed to 16th in the world and had four PGA tour wins.
The Examiner perhaps should have focused on Adam Scott, however, who since climbed to number one in the world and has 14 PGA Tour wins including his famous Masters win in 2013.
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