Australia News: NSW Changes Rules, Green Day and Faith No More Return & More

– New Name Incoming
Melbourne Arena will soon be rechristened to honor late politician John Cain.

NSW changes rules to invigorate nighttime music

After its move January to lift most of the Sydney lockout laws to resuscitate the city’s nighttime economy, the New South Wales government axed antiquated entertainment conditions February 6 allowing 30 venues across the state  to reintroduce or expand its live music.

“Many of these conditions were imposed decades ago in another era, but serve no purpose at all today,” Minister for Customer Service Victor Dominello said. “Some of the greatest bands of all time started their careers in NSW including AC/DC and Midnight Oil. This is another boost for the State’s night time economy, following the introduction of the new lockout laws last month.”

Among those able to bring back live music are one-time punk mecca The Civic, The Criterion, The Croydon Lane, The Oxford Tavern, The Bexley North and The Bath Arms.

Restrictions included specifying how artists could face audiences, number of players and styles of music; one was allowed to feature bands as long as there were no drums and the bass was not amplified.

A parliamentary inquiry in 2018 found 669 venues had restrictions or bans on live music.

Green Day, Faith No More heading back

Live Nation’s Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer team-up, which begins in Paris mid-June, will visit Australia and New Zealand at the end of year.

The “Hella Mega Tour” stops at Perth’s HBF Park on November 8, and will be followed by Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium,  Sydney’s Bankwest Stadium, Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium and Auckland’s Mt. Smart Stadium later that month. New Zealand band The Beths will open all dates.

Meanwhile, for Frontier Touring, Faith No More will embark on its their first Australian headlining tour in 23 years. The band last visited in 2015 as part of the Soundwave festival.

Faith No More’s tour begins in New Zealand, hitting Auckland’s Spark Arena and Christchurch’s Horncastle Arena on May 8 and 10, respectively, before heading to Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, Adelaide Entertainment Centre and Perth’s RAC Arena.

Australia was one of the first markets to open up to Faith No More, and the act is donating all proceeds to bushfire victims at their sold-out June gig at Manchester’s 02 Apollo.

Name change for Melbourne Arena

The 10,300-capacity multi-purpose Melbourne Arena will receive a name change in a few months to honor John Cain, who served as Victoria premier from 1982 to 1990 and died in December at age 88.

Cain played a major role in setting up the Melbourne Park precinct as a major sports and entertainment destination. Melbourne Arena is one of its three venues, starting out as Vodafone Arena in 2000, and then being renamed Hisense Arena in 2008. 

Its current name, bestowed in August 2018, followed a long-term agreement between Tennis Australia and the Victorian government to promote Melbourne globally. The arena most recently hosted the 2020 Australian Open, which drew 812,174 fans over 14 days, breaking last year’s record of 796,435.

No Rage Against The Machine for Splendour

Splendour In The Grass took to Facebook to refute rumors in the Australian media that Rage Against The Machine would play the Byron Bay event, set this year for July 24 to 26. The reports began in November, after a poster purporting to be from the band and displaying headlining dates for Glastonbury, Byron Bay and Melbourne circulated on social media.

The poster proved to be a hoax, but the stories continued. In the Facebook post, Splendour revealed it had tried to book RATM.

“Unfortunately and just for those still hoping, RATM can’t make Australia around Splendour, we tried our very best,” the festival wrote.

The post was accompanied by a 23-second video showing a frustrated office worker demolishing his computer at the news.

Splendour In The Grass, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, did not comment on other rumored headliners such as Travis Scott, Nick Cave, Flume and Lana Del Rey.

Guitarist Andrew Brough Dies

New Zealand guitarist Andrew Brough, recognized as one of the architects of the globally famous Dunedin Sound, died at his home. Police said his death was not suspicious. Brough was best known as a member of Straitjacket Fits 1987 to 1991.

In his 2019 book “Dead People I Have Known,” Straitjacket Fits singer Shayne Carter explained that Brough’s joining a year after they formed gave them the melodic Beatlesque sound they were aiming for.

“The first time Andrew stepped on the mic and played his round Revolver guitar, we knew we’d hit on a sound,” Carter wrote.

Brough played on Straitjacket Fits’ Hail and Melt albums. Though he turned down their invitation to join them for their 2005 reunion, Brough was inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame with them in 2008.