Australia News: Fire Fight, Download, Tones And I & More

During a 10-hour show abounding with one-off collaborations and cover versions, Queen proved a highlight at Fire Fight Australia (Feb. 16) reprising for the first time its legendary 1985 Live Aid set at London’s Wembley Stadium.

The performance, with video extracts of late singer Freddie Mercury from Live Aid, created a surge of audio-visual energy that had the 75,000-strong crowd at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium on its feet.

Queen guitarist Brian May returned for an equally scintillating show-closer from John Farnham who, during his iconic hit “You’re The Voice,” brought on Olivia Newton-John for her first stage appearance in two years, rising First Nations performer Mitch Tambo to sing the verses in his dialect with a didgeridoo player, and a team of firefighters.

The 23 acts included Michael Bublé on relay from Melbourne, 5 Seconds of Summer debuting a new song, Delta Goodrem coming onstage holding an Australian flag, k.d. lang journeying to Australia just to perform two songs, Hilltop Hoods turning their set into a hip hop collaboration, as well as Tina Arena, Alice Cooper, Daryl Braithwaite, Jessica Mauboy, Grinspoon, Baker Boy and Ronan Keating.

Fire Fight Australia raised $9.5 million (US$6.38 million) during the broadcast according to organisers TEG Dainty and TEG Live. TEG chief executive Geoff Jones noted, “it has been an enormous effort from the music industry to pull this concert together in five weeks and we are just so proud of what has been achieved through our collective effort.”

Paul Dainty, president and CEO of TEG Dainty stated: “From the first conversation with Queen’s manager, Jim Beach, the band’s immediate response to support this amazing event was what set everything in motion.”

Initial viewing figures were 1 million from five capital cities on seven-to-air Seven Network. The additional telecast from Foxtel and Channel [V] were not immediately available. A two-hour package of the show will be screened in the US on Fox Networks, Sky in the UK and TVNZ in New Zealand.

The Sydney show of Download festival, scheduled for March 21, was forced to move from Parramatta Park to The Domain In the Royal Botanic Gardens.

Festival organisers explained independent external consultants and assessors found that “given the unique setup and infrastructure required for the event, it would not be the right space to deliver the reassurance to safely present the event with the number of people attending, stages and crowd movement.” 

Download plays another show in Melbourne at the Showgrounds March 20. Headliners My Chemical Romance are among a handful of international acts who are exclusively playing the two dates.

Australian runaway star Tones And I, whose “Dance Monkey” is in the US Top 10 after topping charts in 30 countries, embarks on five theatre dates from May 8 to 29. 

Born Toni Watson, her hit song was written in 30 minutes about catcalls from people during her busking days.

The act just wrapped up stints on the Laneway festival, which had its best year drawing over 100,000 to five cities. 

During the tour, she was presented with an award from music rights association APRA AMCOS for the fastest selling Australian track to reach 1 billion streams. “Dance Monkey” has now hit the 2 billion streams mark.

Tones And I next embarks embark on a five-month sold out world tour. She has teased that on a future Australian run she wants to fit in free lunchtime “anti-bullying shows” at schools selected based on essays submitted by Year 12 students. 

The live biz and consumer groups have applauded the Treasury department’s move to introduce an Information Standard which will require ticket resale websites to disclose the face value of tickets, and that the website is not a primary ticket seller.

More than 26 million tickets were sold for live performance events in Australia during 2018, according to Live Performance Australia. Its chief executive Evelyn Richardson responded to the move, saying, “Too many fans have fallen victim to shonky online reselling sites, and the proposed Information Standard is an important step in tackling the problem at source.”

Julia Steward, head of policy at CHOICE, hoped this would be “the last summer of ticketing fakes. This should be an open and shut case of cracking down on exploitative companies taking advantage of Australian’s appetite for sport, music and culture.”

Eventbrite, which has powered 55,000 events and processed over 3.6 million tickets after launching in New Zealand in 2017, plans to expand activities with the appointment of Tom Freeman as NZ head of business development. 

Freeman has worked the NZ and Australian markets since 2018 in role as senior business development manager – festivals, based in Melbourne.

Josh McNicol, general manager, Eventbrite Asia Pacific, pointed out “despite its small population, New Zealand boasts some of the world’s most avid event-goers: our research shows that historically, 9 out of 10 Kiwi millennials attend at least one event every year.”