Dionysus Events and Experiences manager Jordan Hodge by the Soul Defender truck at the Soul Cave, off Dairy Road. Photo: James Coleman.
Meet the ‘Soul Defender’.
“The military defends our borders, but no one is really defending how we feel,” chief driver David Caffery says.
“And so we have soulful playlists, bubbles, great lighting and a 15-tonne truck to drive around anywhere we want, or anywhere event managers want, to put on some great music and have a lot of fun.”
It’s an ex-Australian Army 1984 Mack 6×6 truck. Canberra events management company Dionysus bought it from an auction in 2018 with an eye to turn it into an ‘urban artwork’ that could double as a live-music stage or parade vehicle.
Thanks to grant funding from the City Renewal Authority (CRA) – and a couple of hundred thousand of their own dollars – the camouflage paintwork was flipped on its head with dashes of pink, purple and yellow, and an intricate L Acoustics sound system and two subwoofers almost as tall as the cab itself were wired in. An array of lights (made from old truck indicators) and a ‘bubble trumpet’ on the roof were thrown in for good measure.
No missing that. Photo: James Coleman.
For the upcoming ‘stage three’ of development, Dave flags sparkler throwers out of the two outermost trumpets and a disco ball suspended from the tray’s roof, “but I don’t want to say too much about that”.
Helping to power it all is a slab of batteries beneath the tray, while other features tap into the truck’s beefy compressed air system.
So far, the Soul Defender has made a name for itself in Canberra events, including for International Make Music Day on 21 June when it blasted tunes and turned heads on an eight-hour ‘Sonic Odyssey’ from the top of the ACT in Amaroo all the way to the south to Banks.
But Dionysus is keen to get it out more in the name of “uplifting the soul”. So we joined them on a gratuitous drive through Braddon …
Visit the Soul Defender website for more information.
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