It could only happen in Queanbeyan.
On Saturday night, just before the Canberra Symphony Orchestra begins its performance on the banks of the Queanbeyan River, the loudest, most brutal machinery to tour the local region will be thundering around, leaping about, smashing cars and wheel-standing just a few blocks away.
Queensland-based driver-cum-promoter Clive Featherby, who brings his monster truck show on a regional tour here every few years, said he "gave up" on taking his show into Canberra's Exhibition Park.
"I tried; it just got too hard," he said.
"There was just too much red tape and noise restrictions.
"It seems you can have all the smoke and noise of Summernats going on in Canberra for four days but for our one-off 90-minute show, where most of the audience are kids under 12, it was much too hard to make it happen."
So some old-fashioned, combustion-powered entertainment this weekend - contrasted by some genteel orchestral refinement - can be found just over the border, fireworks included.
Monster trucks are a uniquely American form of entertainment, drawing sell-out arena crowds whenever they appear. In the US, the giant Feld Entertainment conglomerate has 192 monster trucks that are trucked from one end of the country to the country, performing mind-boggling Simone Biles-like acrobatic stunts.
Three of these huge $400,000 US-built trucks will be a core element to a tightly-packed, fast-paced show at the Queanbeyan showgrounds on Saturday, together with freestyle motocross, a jet van, rollover trucks, and even water jet trick riding from a temporary pool.
"We change it up all the time; we used to do longer shows but people don't want that any more," he said.
"Now we just jam-pack everything into 90 minutes so there's something going on all the time, but the monster trucks are definitely the crowd favourites," Mr Featherby said.
His bill-topping trucks like Rolling Thunda and Tassie Devil are hand-built, imported from Ohio and are hugely expensive to buy and operate as all that jumping, car-crushing, wheel-standing and general leaping about takes a significant mechanical toll, despite the ultra heavy-duty mechanical parts.
Each four-wheel steer, four-wheel drive truck is powered by a supercharged 8.2 litre big-block Chevrolet engine coupled to a heavy duty two-speed transmission. By burning methanol, they each produce around 1500 horsepower, pushed out through two-speed transmission commonly used by Top Fuel drag cars.
But it's the massive tractor-like torque output that's the most impressive aspect, making the 4.5-tonne body squat hard at the rear on its four-to-a-side, long-travel nitrogen-filled shock absorbers when 21-year-old driver Cassius Stevenson floors the throttle.
"It's one of the few shows where if the driver stuffs things up, has the rear wheels pointed the wrong way on the landing and rolls it, the crowd loves it even more," Mr Featherby said.
Keeping the crowds well back, particularly when the only protection at Queanbeyan is a thigh-high chain-link fence, is always a safety priority but if things go awry mid-performance, there is always someone standing by with a thumb ready on a remote engine cut-out.
