Tamworth, Australia  - It's late January and the Australia Day long weekend is coming up.

Some seek relief from the dog days of the southern hemisphere summer at the beach. Others head to Tamworth, a five-hour drive north of Sydney and to its annual country music festival.

Now in its 37th year, Tamworth is the world's biggest country music bash. The 11-day shindig rates eighth in Forbes magazine's list of the world's 10 best festivals.

Queensland couple Del Connolly and John Hastie are in town after a two-day drive, making the scene in Peel Street.

"We're not expecting it to be exciting - we know it will be exciting," Hastie said, adding, "There's enough for us to see and do just here on the main street."

Concerts by big name country stars require a ticket but most of the 2,500 events are free. And there are buskers on Peel Street at all hours of the day, many of them dreaming of being discovered and following local idol Keith Urban all the way to Nashville, country music stardom, a fortune and a film-star spouse.

"All roads lead to Tamworth at this time of year," said Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) general manager Kate Nugent.

She's expecting 50,000 visitors - a doubling of the normal population. There's a tent city, and festival-goers are billeted in surrounding towns.

Connolly and Hastie like country and western, rockabilly, bluegrass, ballads, western swing, gospel and blues.

What's likely to surprise them is the variety of the other performances: a German-style oompah band, jugglers, someone with a xylophone fashioned out of beer bottles, a world record attempt that will see perhaps thousands of guitarists on Peel Street playing the opening bars of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water."

"The festival is really just about being entertained," Nugent said. "It's certainly about country music, but it just comes in so many styles and forms from the buskers through to the professionals."

You'll feel right at home at Tamworth in Texas boots, tassels and a cowboy hat. There's a boot-scooting event that attracts legions of line-dancers.

As the festival has grown, though, the country music fan from central casting has been joined by ordinary folk with eclectic tastes. With heavy metal originators Deep Purple on the set list, prepare your ear drums for anything. (dpa)